Faculty/staff inventors to be honored at reception Feb. 26

By ELLEN GOLDBAUM

News Services Staff

INVENTORS ON the faculty and staff of UB will be honored during a reception to be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 26, in the Center for Tomorrow on the North Campus.

UB faculty and staff inventors who are named on 13 U.S. patents issued to the State University of New York Research Foundation in 1995 will receive awards, which recognize their achievements as inventors of patented devices, materials or drugs.

For the first time, video and CD-ROM demonstrations of inventions will be shown.

Kathleen R. Terry, director of technology transfer at UB, explained that some of the inventors are being honored this year for patents involving improvements and modifications on inventions for which they have previously received patents. "For very valuable inventions, it can be important to file not only on an original invention, but also on improvements to that invention," said Terry. "This strengthens our patent position."

The UB faculty members are:

  • Deborah D.L. Chung, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and Yi-Han Kao, professor of physics, inventors of a fullerene that is superconductive at much higher temperatures than has been previously shown. Kevin T. Fredette and Liwei Song were co-inventors.

  • Wayne A. Anderson, professor of electrical and computer engineering, inventor of a novel thin-film capacitor with unique electrical properties that will be of significant interest to semiconductor manufacturers. Robert S. Hamilton, Quanxi Jia and Zhiquing Shi were co-inventors.

  • Jerome J. Schentag, professor of pharmaceutics, and David T. D'Andrea, co-inventors of a computer-controlled "smart pill" that can be electronically tracked and instructed to deliver a drug to a predetermined location in the gastrointestinal tract.

  • Donald D. Hickey, research assistant professor of physiology, inventor of the Hickey catheter, a non-invasive method and new apparatus for measuring blood pressure inside the left atrium of the heart.

  • Joseph Mollendorf, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, inventor of an elegant, comfortable replacement for the Philadelphia collar for support of the neck. Robert M. Catipovic and Lillian A. Pascale were co-inventors.

  • Robert J. Genco, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Oral Biology; Mary J. Evans and Steven J. Greenberg, both from Roswell Park Cancer Institute; Richard T. Evans, associate professor of microbiology and oral biology, and Howard K. Kuramitsu, professor of oral biology, inventors of a sensitive new mode of detecting P. gingivalis, a causative organism of periodontal disease. Genco also is being honored for inventing a method of inducing regeneration of periodontal tissue and bone. Moon-Il Cho, associate professor of oral biology, was co-inventor.

  • Ralph T. Yang, former chair of the Department of Chemical Engineering, inventor of two new methods of scrubbing nitrogen oxide from smokestacks. J. Edward Cichanowicz was co-inventor on one patent; Ning Chen was co-inventor on the second.

  • Robert Straubinger, associate professor of pharmaceutics, inventor of a new formulation of the anticancer agent taxol that seems to be stable and non-toxic, which may make it applicable to many different kinds of cancers. Amarnath Sharma and Eric Mayhew, co-inventors.

  • Abir Mullick, assistant professor of architecture, inventor of a wheelchair- accessible drinking fountain. Michael Osadciew, Michael F. LaMonica and Matthew C. Guthrie were co-inventors.

  • Bradley P. Fuhrman, professor of pediatrics and anesthesiology, inventor of anti-inflammatory agents for lung and other tissue made from fluorocarbons. Lynn J. Hernan, Michele C. Papo, David M. Steinhorn, all assistant professors of pediatrics and anesthesiology; Stephen F. Flaim and Frances D. Nesti, co-inventors.

  • John H. Zaharkin, senior lab equipment designer in the Department of Physiology, and Michael S. Zaharkin, father-son inventors of a device that measures the motion characteristics of a human joint.

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