TCS welcomes Michael A. Invernale as the new Senior Licensing Manager for Physical Sciences.  He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Boston College, where he worked on nanoparticles for aqueous soluble semiconductor nanocrystals. Michael also holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Connecticut, spanning the Chemistry Department and the Institute of Materials Science; his dissertation focused on organic conducting polymers with a variety of properties, including color-changing functionality. Michael was also a postdoctoral associate in the Langer Lab at MIT, where his studies centered around novel sensing platforms using microneedle arrays and conducting polymers for diabetes therapeutics.

While at MIT, a UConn start-up company, Alphachromics, which was co-founded by Michael and his PhD advisor, Gregory A. Sotzing, gained traction and attracted him back to Storrs. Throughout his graduate and entrepreneurial work, Michael engaged with Tech Transfer, intellectual property, and marketing of nascent technologies.

Now back at UConn, Michael is excited to be a part of UConn’s research world once again: “I am very eager to engage with faculty and to make a meaningful contribution to the successes of the many incredible technological innovations generated at the University on a daily basis. There is no dearth of talented individuals here who give us the opportunity to learn about their amazing new scientific achievements and to find ways to bring them into the broader marketplace. This office plays a unique role in the life cycle of technology, and it is a vibrant place to work for any curious and creative individual.”

Author: Michael Invernale, Senior Licensing Manager for Physical Sciences

TCS was busy this Fall, check out some of the highlights in our Winter Newsletter!

Mental health remains a concern for all of us, but especially among the parents, teachers and organizations that see the devastating effects of declining mental health among our teenage population, primarily among young girls. From February to March 2021, emergency rooms visits for suspected suicide attempts were over 50% higher among girls aged 12–17 compared to that same period in 2019, according to a study published by this summer by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

When speaking about the state of our youth’s mental health, US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy states, “This is a critical issue that we have to do something about now. We can’t wait until after the pandemic is over.” 

When TIP Digital had the opportunity to work with CEO Wendy Ward and her team at futuresTHRIVE, a tech company focused on developing mental health intervention tools for schools and pediatric doctors, we were thrilled. Not only is Wendy and her team focused on a topic near and dear to many of us at TIP and the broader Stamford community, but they are addressing a devastating gap in current mental health diagnoses: baselining a child’s mental health characteristics from age 4 so as to identify high-risk patients and intervene early on. 

futuresTHRIVE will graduate the TIP Digital program in February 2022 after reaching some impressive milestones: 

• Raising an additional $125,000K. 
• Receiving a recommendation from the National Science Foundation for a grant investment of $256,000 for design phase 2. 
• Out of 263 participants, being among the 8 finalists at the prestigious Ignite Healthcare Fire Pitch Competition. 

We are excited to continue to work with Wendy and her team as they become alumni of the program and can’t wait to see all the success they achieve and lives they positive impact in 2022 and beyond.  

If you are a doctor or school practitioner interested in learning more about futuresTHRIVE’s product or becoming a strategic partner in their success, please email Wendy Ward at info@futuresTHRIVE.com. 

Author: Margaret Feeney, Director of TIP Digital 

Technology Commercialization Services (TCS) has launched a new online portal for submission of new invention disclosures for faculty, staff and students across all campuses. The new online portal will make it easier and more efficient for inventors to submit their invention disclosure and will also allow them to track its progress through the intellectual property protection process. The forms allow the inventors to attach any relevant documents such as manuscripts, posters and the signed signature page. In addition to the standard invention disclosure form, a separate form is available for software inventions.  Both forms can be accessed using the link https://uconn.wellspringsoftware.net/.

TCS works with innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and industry partners to transform UConn discoveries into products, companies, and jobs that benefit society and fuel economic development. Through a coordinated approach between tech transfer, licensing, and startup teams, TCS provides services that enable success for faculty, business, Connecticut, and beyond.

Author: Amit Kumar, Director of Licensing 

A lot happened in TCS this summer! Check out what we’ve been up to in our Fall newsletter

I was excited to represent UConn at the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO) International Convention, BIODigital, this past June.  BIO is the world’s largest advocacy association representing member companies, state biotechnology groups, academic and research institutions, and related organizations across the United States and in 30+ countries. Due to the pandemic, the conference was virtual for the second year in a row. A virtual platform allowed me to meet with companies from all over the world.  I was excited to represent UConn as our research has developed around 100 innovative technologies. I was able to a good sense of the current of the biotechnology market, and the conference gave me the opportunity to promote UConn great research.

Throughout the conference it became clear that larger biotech companies seem to be paying more attention to early stage technologies. Rare disease technologies were a hot topic last year and remained so this year as well.  The overall impression was that companies are “hungry” for new tech and new ideas. BIODigital is a great learning and networking experience for those in the biotech industry and beyond!

Author: Ana Lena Fidantsef, Technology Licensing Associate

TCS welcomes Chris Conners as a new Licensing Director for Life Sciences.  Chris holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from University of Florida with a Minor in Biomechanics. While there, he was an undergraduate researcher on a project on predictive modeling for pharmaceutical air mills. Chris also has his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from University of South Florida (USF), where his dissertation focused on nanoparticle based drug delivery in the treatment of severe osteoporotic diseases.

While at USF, Chris interned in their Tech Transfer office, which led to his love for the Tech Transfer field. After his dissertation defense, he joined the Tech Transfer team at USF where he eventually ended up overseeing the life science portfolio for the university.

Now at UConn, Chris is excited to be a part of UConn’s research world: “UConn’s research base is growing every year, and there are exciting technologies coming out of the university. I am excited to help with that growth and the corresponding growth of this office. I am especially excited to participate with some of the new changes in the office, like the transition to doing more patent filings in house. Furthermore, I am excited to share my knowledge, experience and perspective with the rest of the team.”

A little over a year ago, TCS embarked on a journey to create a robust and impactful internship program, designed to not only support internal activities, but also to foster student growth, learning, and workforce retention within the State of Connecticut.

Starting with a single intern in the Fall of 2020, we have worked to steadily grown the program, and will have a four student cohort beginning in Fall 2021.  The impact of our interns has been tangible.  In the past year they have made a substantial contribution to our marketing and outreach activities through their efforts in creating marketing sheets, performing market surveys, identifying potential partners and licensees, and conducting active email outreach to initiate contact and relationships.  Similarly, we have seen substantial growth in the capabilities, professionalism, and critical thinking of our student interns.  It has been a pleasure to mentor and get to know these wonderful young adults.

Moving forward TCS plans to continue building on these initial successes through expansion of the Internship Program, along with the additional goal of developing a Fellows program focused on promoting diversity and inclusion within Intellectual Property-centric careers and arenas.

Author: Lindsay Sanford, Director of Licensing

 

Read about what we’ve been up to in our Summer Newsletter.  Be sure to subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on news and events.

Erin Daly is TCS’s new Senior Manager of Intellectual Property, Life Sciences.  She is responsible for managing and growing the life sciences patent portfolio within the university.  Erin holds a juris doctorate from Suffolk University Law School and is also a registered patent practitioner with the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Prior to joining UConn, Erin worked for eight years as a patent technology specialist. Her focus had been on drafting and prosecuting domestic and foreign patent applications related to pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals, chemical processes, drug delivery, chemical formulations, and crystallography. Exemplary technologies include novel chemical entities, including antibody-drug conjugates, polymers, lipid nanoparticles, isotopically-labelled compounds, oligomers, and small molecules; solid forms of compounds, such as crystalline polymorphs; methods of organic synthesis, and methods of treating various types of cancer, microbial infections, pain, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Erin also has extensive experience in organic and medicinal chemistry research. She completed her postdoctoral studies in the Guy laboratory, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, where her project was directed towards developing novel therapeutic agents for targeting the assembly of the transcriptional activation complex by the androgen nuclear hormone receptor.

Prior to her postdoctoral work, Erin earned a Ph.D. in the laboratory of Professor Richard E. Taylor at the University of Notre Dame where her dissertation studies provided biophysical evidence for the bioactive conformation of the epoxide/olefinic region of the epothilone class of natural products.

“I really love intellectual property law because of the juxtaposition of the law and science. Some of the best parts about this job are collaborating with top tier researchers in their field and (in a tangential way) being a part of their science by helping them obtain a patent.  I think UConn is a fantastic institution with some of the best minds in the U.S. and maybe the world. I am really looking forward to working with them!”