Tag: Inventor

A series of interviews with inventor’s who have products on the market

15 Good Minutes: Lily Yang, MD, PhD

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

When asked to describe her job, Lily Yang, MD, PhD, said that she is first and foremost “a translational scientist of oncology research.” Yang is also a professor of Surgery and Radiology and Imaging Sciences, the Nancy Panoz Chair of Surgery in Cancer Research, and Director of the Surgical Oncology Nanomedicine Research Lab, all at the Emory University School of Medicine. She is an innovator and researcher within the field of oncology, and she has made a career of recognizing shortcomings in clinical management of cancer patients, filling the gaps in oncological knowledge, and developing better treatment options for cancer Read More …

NAI Member Spotlight: A Q&A with faculty driving innovation at Emory OTT

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

Faculty research is what drives our work in Emory’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT). Their discoveries shape every part of our mission, whether it’s filing patents, licensing technologies, or guiding early-stage startups. As a way to honor their accomplishments, OTT nominates outstanding faculty innovators to the National Academy of Inventors (NAI), an esteemed organization that recognizes inventors with U.S. patents. In our 40 years of existence, OTT has fostered relationships with faculty members and encouraged academic inventorship. Here, we spoke with several of Emory’s esteemed NAI Fellows and Senior Members about their career as innovators and experiences partnering with OTT. Read More …

How To: Build an Effective Start-Up Pitch Deck

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

A strong pitch deck is a must for any academic entrepreneur aiming to take their research to the next step and launch a start-up. Decks are the foundation of how ideas are communicated in business but translating years of rigorous research and ambitious plans into a concise and digestible presentation requires strategy, clarity, and a deep understanding of your audience in the market. So, how can you create a pitch deck that captures attention and inspires confidence in your start-up? 1. Start with your Elevator Pitch The opening slide of your deck sets the tone for the rest of your Read More …

I’ve Submitted my Invention … Now What?: Or, The First Steps with Emory OTT!

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

  A faculty member has a great invention. They submit an invention disclosure. What happens next? Emory’s Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) is an Emory researcher’s first stop on the road to commercialization. From the moment a disclosure is submitted, our staff works to ensure a smooth and efficient process for all parties involved. Each invention disclosure is assigned a tech ID number and OTT licensing associate. The licensing associate will then have some initial conversations with the faculty member about their goals for the product or project and the type of funding surrounding their research. From this point on, Read More …

The ABCs of Start-up Funding

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

The lessons learned from fundraising for your childhood sports team may come in handy as you begin to grow your start-up. While 29% of start-ups fail after running out of money, series funding is a useful way to overcome this obstacle. Fundraising may be time consuming, but it is necessary to find investors to prevent your new business from running out of money before it can even begin. This process begins with pre-seed funding, where the founders of a startup raise money from themselves, friends, family, or even an angel investor to begin the development of a prototype or proof-of-concept before moving Read More …

15 Good Minutes: Khalid Salaita, PhD

Posted onAuthorAsher Alt

Khalid Salaita, PhD has been studying the connection between chemistry and mechanical forces in his laboratory at Emory for 14 years. After completing his PhD at Northwestern University, where he studied material science and interfaces and surfaces, he completed his postdoc at UC Berkeley studying the assembly of receptor tyrosine kinase proteins in the plasma membrane. He has been leading his lab at Emory ever since, studying a wide range of questions in the chemistry field. Not only is he a professor of chemistry and a program faculty of biomedical engineering, but he also is affiliated with the Winship Cancer Read More …

Mark Goodman: The Radiologist

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Mark Goodman, PhD holds the Emory University Endowed Chair in Imaging Science. He is Professor in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology and Director of the Radiology and Imaging Sciences Radiopharmaceutical Discovery Laboratory. Goodman received his BA in chemistry from Monmouth College, Illinois, and a PhD from the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale and Harvard University in radiopharmaceutical chemistry. His research is directed towards the development of new radiotracers for the study and management of treatment of myocardial disorders, Read More …

Dennis Liotta: The Chemist

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Synthetic chemist Dennis Liotta, PhD, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor at Emory and executive director of the Emory Institute for Drug Development, is the co-developer of an antiretroviral drug that has saved the lives of countless people living with HIV around the world. Starting out: Liotta says he was “genetically coded to be a chemist.” Not only was he naturally drawn to the field, he was able to follow the footsteps of his oldest brother, an organic chemist at Georgia Tech. “Charles was my first scientific role model,” Liotta says. “He is one of the most gifted teachers I’ve ever seen. Read More …

Raymond Schinazi: The Virologist

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Organic medicinal chemist and virologist Raymond Schinazi, PhD, the Frances Winship Walters Professor of Pediatrics at Emory and director of the Laboratory of Biochemical Pharmacology, was born in Egypt to Italian parents. In 1962 his family was threatened by the Nasser regime and immigrated to Naples as refugees. He went to boarding school in the UK, where he was a chemistry major at Bath University, and later came to the U.S. and studied pharmacology at Yale University before beginning his career at Emory. The path to chemist: I was actually pretty good at chemistry. I wanted to by a physicist, but Read More …

Monte Eaves: A Kauffman Success Story

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Monte Eaves is a professor of surgery at Emory University and Medical Director at Emory Aesthetic Center. He is also the man behind EMRGE, a company developing products that are revolutionizing the wound closure industry. EMRGE challenges the traditional needle and thread wound closure procedure with noninvasive and cost-effective technology that promotes healing and minimizes scarring. For this, Eaves was recently awarded the Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) award for 2017 Startup of The Year, one of many achievements. Shortly after, we got to talk with him about how he got there and the role OTT and Emory’s Kauffman Foundation Read More …

What Does Mixing Math, Physics, Computers, and Imagination Give You? A Pioneer in Radiation Oncology.

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Ian R. Crocker, MD, FACR, is a radiation oncologist specializing in brain and eye tumors, who worked at Winship Cancer Institute for over 30 years. Throughout his career, Crocker was an active member of multiple innovation and research teams that sought to develop new medical technologies and methods to improve treatment outcomes and patient care. Some of his most notable successes include his co-invention of the BetaCath system to prevent the re-narrowing of arteries after an angioplasty and his involvement in the Emory start-up, Velocity Medical Solutions, which produced new, widely used imaging software to improve cancer treatment. Now retired Read More …

Lessons from Baseball: Applying Passion and Competitive Drive to Radiation Oncology

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Tim Fox worked at Emory University as an Associate Professor & Director of Medical Physics from 1994 to 2014. In 2005 he and three of his Emory colleagues created the Emory start-up, Velocity Medical Solutions, which built and sold a multimodal medical imaging software. Velocity was later acquired by Varian Medical Systems and in 2014, Fox left Emory to accept a full-time position as the Associate Vice President of Imaging Informatics at Varian. Fox grew up playing baseball and now applies that same passion and drive to his entrepreneurial endeavors Just like the famous line from the baseball movie, Field Read More …

Treating Anxiety Disorders: Balancing the Real World and the Virtual World

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Barbara Olasov Rothbaum, PhD, is the Associate Vice Chair of Clinical Research in Emory School of Medicine’s Department of Psychiatry, a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, and director of Emory’s Veterans Program and Emory’s Trauma & Anxiety Recovery Program. Dr. Rothbaum specializes in treatment of anxiety disorders, with a focus on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). With over 200 scientific publications, Rothbaum has changed the field of PTSD and was a forerunner in the use of virtual reality in treatment of anxiety disorders. What initially drew you to the field of psychiatry? I went to UNC-Chapel Hill Read More …

Inventor Becomes Patient: My Tool Was Like a Trusted Friend Telling Me What Was Wrong

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Ernest V. Garcia, PhD, or better known as Ernie, is an endowed professor in cardiac imaging and the director of Emory’s Nuclear Cardiology R&D Laboratory. He specializes in medical imaging and bioinformatics, particularly quantitative analysis of cardiac images. Ernie has received numerous awards and honors but to highlight a few he was named a Medical Imaging Industry Top 10 Nuclear Medicine Researcher by the Medical Imaging Magazine and was named to the Council of Distinguished Investigators of the Academy of Radiology Research. What lead you to pursue cardiac imaging as part of your profession? I was trained as a scientist, Read More …

It Started in My Basement, Now it Improves Patients Lives

Posted onAuthorLinda Kesselring

Charles M. Epstein, MD, or “Chip” as he’s been known since childhood, is a professor of neurology specializing in epilepsy and the founder of  the Laboratory for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). He is also a co-inventor for the technology that is utilized by Emory partner Neuronetics, Inc in their NeuroStar TMS Therapy® for treating depression. Neuronetics has safely administered more than 10,000 NeuroStar TMS Therapy® treatments with clinically significant results: among patients studied, 54 percent responded to the therapy and 33 percent found their depression in remission. Neurostar wasn’t the first technology you were involved with. Could you tell us Read More …