Georgia Bio each year recognizes individuals, companies and organizations for significant contributions to Georgia’s life sciences industry at its annual awards dinner. Four awards were presented to Emory University bioscience leaders at this year’s annual dinner on January 23, 2014 at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre. Todd Sherer, PhD, CLP, Associate Vice-President for Research Administration and Executive Director of Technology Transfer, Emory University, was among those honored as a recipient of the Georgia Bio Community Award.
Dr. Sherer has expanded and led Emory University’s Office of Technology Transfer for 10 years, growing the team from a group of eight into a specialized staff of 20 and leading the program to national prominence. During this time, he has been a member of the Georgia life sciences community. Dr. Sherer’s efforts, which have resulted in multiple record-setting years in licensing revenues, licensing agreements and start-ups, have not only benefited Emory University, but also the broader Atlanta and Georgia bioscience communities. He established a biannual Breakfast Club program to pitch promising Emory inventions to the Georgia business community. The program is designed to give the community an early look at the exciting technologies being developed at Emory and pair local entrepreneurs and investors with these opportunities. Further, Dr. Sherer served as President of the EmTech Biotechnology incubator and oversaw its seed fund targeted at Emory/Georgia Tech collaborative projects. He helped educate faculty at Georgia universities about entrepreneurship by bringing the Kauffman Foundation FastTrac® TechVenture™ Program to Atlanta. He has contributed his time and energy to strengthening the bioscience industry as a member of the Southern Bioalliance Board, Wallace H. Coulter Translational Fund Review Committee, Georgia Research Alliance VentureLab Advisory Board, and Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Working Group. He has also assisted the boards of numerous local biotechnology start-ups including Curry Pharmaceuticals and Metastatix. Dr. Sherer is the Immediate Past President of the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), which represents over 300 organizations from 30 countries, and remains a key member of the organization’s board. In addition, he serves on the Southeast BIO (SEBIO) board of directors and is Conference Co-Chair of the upcoming SEBIO investor forum being held in Atlanta later this year.
Along with Sherer, the Emory award recipients were David Perryman, COO of Drug Innovation Ventures at Emory; Ami Klin, Phd, director of the Marcus Autism Center, chief of the Division of Autism and Related Disorders in the Department of Pediatrics at Emory University School of Medicine, and a Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar; and Dana Fallaize, a graduate student in Emory’s Microgiology and Molecular Genetics program and an intern in the Office of Technology Transfer. They received the 2014 Georgia Bio Industry Growth Award, Georgia Bio Innovation Award and the Georgia Bio Emerging Leader of the Year Award, respectively.
Julie Meiburg, Executive Admin. Asssistant