are active faculty, scientists and administrators who have demonstrated remarkable innovation producing technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society. They also have growing success in patents, licensing and commercialization, while educating and mentoring the next generation of inventors.

“Recognition from NAI is a tremendous accomplishment, and we are extremely proud of these UofL innovators,” said Jon Klein, interim executive vice president for research and innovation. “The research-backed technologies they are developing have the potential to diagnose, treat and cure disease and improve the way we live and work. I look forward to seeing them continue to develop these innovations into practical solutions to real world problems.”

The four inventors selected from UofL, the only ones from Kentucky, are:Ěý

• Thad Druffel, and the . Druffel’s work focuses on solar power, including via his startup, Ěýwhich is commercializing a technology meant to make solar power more accessible.Ěý
• Nobuyuki Matoba, . Matoba’s work focuses on tackling devastating diseases, inflammatory bowel disease and cancer, through new vaccines, immunotherapeutics and treatments that leverage protein engineering and plant-based biotechnology.ĚýFor his work, Matoba was named UofL’s 2023 Innovator of the Year.Ěý
• Thomas Roussel, Speed School. Roussel focuses on microfabricated/COTS sensor technologies and custom instrumentation, all in support of the development of analytical techniques for environmental studies, orthopedic and rehabilitation platforms, as well as biomedical diagnostic applications.Ěý
• Jagannadh Satyavolu, Speed School and the Conn Center. Satyavolu has a way to leverage spent bourbon stillage to make greener energy solutions and other products, including through his startup, BioProducts LLC.Ěý

UofL and its provide robust support for inventors working to develop and commercialize the technologies emerging from their research, including intellectual property protection, entrepreneurial coaching and product development grants and training. The goal is to translate academic research into products that can save and improve lives.Ěý

In the past fiscal year, UofL was awarded 38 new patents, secured 11 licenses, launched three new startups and brought in a total of $1.4 million in innovation income, including patent royalties and licensing. Over its 25-year history of commercializing research, UofL has been awarded more than 350 U.S. patents, formed nearly 50 startups still in operation and has created countless new products and services positively impacting people here and beyond. For those successes, UofL ranks among the for patents awarded.Ěý

“This year’s class of Senior Members is truly a testament to…what happens when the academic space encourages and celebrates invention and commercialization,” said Paul R. Sanberg, President of NAI. “We are proud to welcome these outstanding academic inventors to the Academy and look forward to supporting and celebrating them as they continue in their innovation journeys.”

UofL researchers can begin their inventor journey , and industry interested in licensing UofL IP can find a full listing of available technologies . Ěý

Six projects were selected this funding cycle, two of which are from UofL:

• Pediatric NeuroRecovery Posture Control System (researcher Andrea Behrman)
• Vertify Probe: Intraoperative Device for Measurement of Bone Quality (researchers Stuart Williams, Maxwell Boakye and Michael Voor)

KYNETIC is a statewide program supported by $6.6 million in funding, including a $4 millionĚýResearch Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) grant from the National Institutes of Health and matching funds. The goal is to advance the most promising biomedical research innovations — including pharmaceuticals, devices and apps — from the state’s eight public universities and the Kentucky Community & Technical College System (KCTCS).

KYNETIC grants support six-month, milestone-driven projects focused onĚýquickly determining whether or not each technology is viable as a commercial product.ĚýAwardees will receive funding for product-focused research and development, attend trainings, and get advice from program staff, industry, investors and other experts on identifying needs, navigating regulations and protecting their intellectual property.Ěý

Paula Bates, professor of medicine at UofL, who co-leads KYNETIC, said the idea is to spur innovation and economic development through collaboration.

“I’m very pleased with the strong projects awarded in this cycle of KYNETIC, each of which will have a positive impact on human health,” she said. “Collaboration and innovation go hand-in-hand, and that’s our goal with KYNETIC. It’s a really powerful way to use our collective expertise to help to turn great ideas from our state into products that improve people’s health and wellbeing.”

Applications for the next cycle of KYNETIC funding are ĚýandĚýrequire a two-page pre-proposal. Funding cycles are offered twice a year and are open to faculty, staff, trainees and students. Competitive renewal opportunities are available.

Launched in 2019, the KYNETIC program builds on UofL’s strong history of translational research support, which includes a prestigious for turning research into products.

“Through these programs, UofL supports commercialization of the work being done by our researchers here,” said Jessica Sharon, UofL’s director of innovation programs. “The goal is to translate research into products that can improve, or even save, lives.”

KYNETIC is led by UofL, the University of Kentucky, the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, and Kentucky Commercialization Ventures, and works closely with Kentucky’s regional universities and KCTCS.

Fellows are selected for their “spirit of innovation” in university research, helping to generate groundbreaking inventions that have a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Trent is the only 2020 fellow from the state of Kentucky and the seventh from UofL. The 2020 Fellow class of 175 inventors represents 115 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide.

“It’s certainly an honor and I think it’s a testament to the drug discovery program we’ve built at the Brown Cancer Center and UofL through many collaborations and partnerships,” said Trent, a professor of medicine and the Wendell Cherry Endowed Chair in Cancer Translational Research. “The benefits of UofL are the support we’ve had for taking creative activities through intellectual property protection to the commercialization grant programs.”

As deputy director of basic and translational research at the , Trent’s Molecular Modeling Facility uses computer predictions to understand and virtually test how drug and disease molecules might interact before real-world testing in the lab.

Trent also runs the UofL partnership with , a company that created a grid that uses the processing power of thousands of computers in schools across Kentucky that Trent uses to screen potential drugs and compounds against and, most recently, . The DataseamGrid has the capability to screen millions of potential compounds against molecular targets in only a few days.

Trent holds more than 50 patents, 24 of which are U.S., and numerous licenses and option agreements with potential commercial partners. Among other accolades, he received the Apple Science Innovator Award and the 2019 , the latter awarded through the UofL Commercialization EPI-Center.

“We’re very proud of John, and all his work to create innovations that have the power to advance our health,” said Kevin Gardner, UofL’s executive vice president for research and innovation. “The fact that John and other UofL researchers before him have received this honor, the highest for academic inventors, shows our university’s commitment and leadership in research, invention and developing technologies that change and improve the way we work and live.”

Previous Fellows from UofL include Suzanne Ildstad and Kevin Walsh (2014), William Pierce (2015), Paula Bates (2016), Robert S. Keynton (2017) and Ayman El Baz (2019).

Trent’s induction, paired with Bates’ four years earlier, also makes the two of them one of only a handful of married couples to be named fellows. The duo also frequently works together, including developing the aptamer that would become the basis for innovative technologies since applied to fight and novel .

The 2020 NAI Fellow class collectively holds more than 4,700 issued U.S. patents.

Among the class are 24 recipients of National AcademiesĚýof Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine honors, six recipients of American Academy of Arts & Sciences honors and two Nobel Laureates, as well as other honors and distinctions. The complete list of 2020 NAI Fellows is available .

And now, Louisville startup Ěýhas licensed the technology from UofL and is working to get it to market.Ěý

The inventor here, , studies organizational culture and applied behavioral economics as an associate professor at the UofL College of łÉČËÖ±˛Ą and Human Development (CEHD). His is the first licensed technology out of CEHD.Ěý

Shuck said organizations are more productive and, often, more profitable when their employees are engaged in their workplace. Engaged employees also have a better overall workplace experience. However, his research suggests there is a more than 60% drop off in levels of engagement in the first six months of an employee’s tenure.

“Globally, employee engagement remains a critical, and sought-after competitive advantage for businesses and organizations of all sizes,” he said. “It is the differentiator between market share, customer experience and quality. Everyone wants more of it.”

His software, the Employee Engagement Scale (EES), helps companies to monitor that engagement, and hopefully improve it, through brief, easy-to-use surveys that gauge how employees think and feel about their work.Ěý

The EES will be a central part of system for businesses that provides a sort of “virtual colleague” — one that keeps track of who and what staff are communicating while analyzing collaboration. CEOĚýCharley Miller said the “colleague”Ěýcould help leaders in the company better understand their employees and make smart decisions on how to improve the work environment.ĚýĚýĚý

“One of the key aspects of a good colleague is that they are great listeners,” Miller said. “Dr. Shuck’s IP enables us to ensure our virtual colleague is great listener when it comes to understanding how to ascertain employee engagement.”Ěý

Not only is Shuck’s technology the first out of CEHD to be licensed to a company, but it’s the first license of the UofL Office of Research and Innovation’s Entrepreneurs-in-Residence, or EIR, program.Ěý

Miller was one of the program’s first EIRs, to help guide UofL research-backed technologies to market in collaboration with the . After Miller’s term ended, he launched Unitonomy around Shuck’s technology.Ěý

“Sometimes all it takes is getting the right mix of people — researchers, entrepreneurs, community members — in the same room,” said Will Metcalf, executive director of , who launched the EIR program. “This is case-in-point, and we’re so excited to see what grows of this partnership between Charley and UofL.”Ěý

Funding for the EIRs comes from the , a public-private partnership led by UofL and backed by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development to grow Louisville’s entrepreneurship ecosystem.

He and 167 other inventors from institutions around the world will be formally recognized as 2019 NAI Fellows at a ceremony in Phoenix, Arizona, in April 2020, according to a .

“It is a great honor for me to be one of the NAI fellows,” said El-Baz, a UofL J.B. Speed School of Engineering alum and chair of bioengineering.

At UofL, El-Baz works at the intersection of computer science and medicine. Many of his inventions use artificial intelligence to analyze medical images, allowing them to very accurately diagnose everything from Ěýto to .

El-Baz is the sixth UofL inventor to be inducted into the NAI, following Suzanne Ildstad and Kevin Walsh (2014); William Pierce (2015); Paula Bates (2016); and most recently, Robert S. Keynton (2017).

“We’re very proud of Ayman, and all past UofL inductees, for this huge accomplishment and all the hard work behind it,” said Allen Morris, executive director of the . His office works with UofL researchers, like , to commercialize their inventions.Ěý

“This kind of honor shows our university’s commitment to and leadership in research, invention and technology commercialization,” he said. “These inventions have the power to change and improve the way we work and live.”

Aside from the EPI-Center, El-Baz has also worked with other UofL programs for technology development and commercialization. He was the first researcher to hit a “trifecta” with UofL’s suite ofĚý, having earned entry into the UofL Coulter Translational Partnership, NSF I-Corps and NSF AWARE:ACCESS programs.

“These crucial support mechanisms have enabled me to develop and translate technologies from ideation to commercialization quickly,” El-Baz said.

To date, El-Baz holds eight patents, five copyrights and has had 11 technologies optioned and two have been licensed to companies for further development and commercialization. Some technologies have also resulted in startup ventures like Autism Diagnostics Technologies Inc., which El-Baz co-founded, creating jobs and economic development.Ěý

NAI fellows hold a collective 41,500 issued U.S. patents, resulting in 11,000 licensed technologies and companies, generating more than 36 million jobs and $1.6 trillion in revenue, according to the release.

“I am so impressed by the caliber of this year’s class of NAI Fellows, all of whom are highly-regarded in their respective fields,” NAI President Paul R. Sanberg said in the release. “The breadth and scope of their discovery is truly staggering. I’m excited not only see their work continue, but also to see their knowledge influence a new era of science, technology, and innovation worldwide.”

And it gets sweeter: the process also results in a bio-mass “coal” alternative that burns up to 20 times cleaner than the regular stuff.

The technology was invented at the UofL , biomass conversion and biofuels group in collaboration with Michael Nantz and his team in the UofL chemistry department. The newly-issued patent for the technology is now licensed to Louisville-based startup, BioProducts, which is working to get it to market.

Brian Walsh, the company’s CEO, said the potential environmental benefits of the technology are huge. According to the , burning traditional coal can cause emissions linked to smog, acid rain and other negative environmental and health side effects

“There’s a better way to do it,” he said. “We don’t have to harm the earth. We don’t have to pollute.”

The process isolates xylose – a low-calorie sugar from the biomass. Xylose sugar is widely used as a diabetic sweetener in food and beverage applications. It is also used as a diagnostic agent to observe malabsorption in the gastrointestinal tract.Ěý

Once the xylose is extracted, the team turns the remnant agriculture waste products into a cleaner “drop-in” replacement for coal – a “bio-coal” product.

BioProducts licensed the technology from UofL’s , which handles intellectual property resulting from university research and forges partnerships with companies for commercialization.

“I’m blown away with how well UofL does integrating technology with business leaders,” Walsh said. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t see other universities doing that better.”

Dr. Jagannadh Satyavolu, theme leader for biomass and biofuels research at the UofL Conn Center, led this research effort and is the founder of BioProducts. Energy and value creation from waste products are his specialty.Ěý

In the past, Satyavolu has partnered with industry to accelerate the commercialization of multiple bioproducts made from wood and agricultural biomass materials. His bio-coal work has been partly funded by U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities.ĚýDr. Satyavolu is continuing his bio-coal research work with Oregon Torrefaction LLC, John Day, Oregon and other industry partners.

The process technology behind those products, as with the technology licensed by BioProducts, was — essentially, “roasting” the biomass material to remove moisture and certain volatile compounds. A densification step needs to follow torrefaction to make the product denser, turning it into a coal replacement brick that’s easier to store and ship.

He said the xylose work started about seven years ago, after he took on a pilot project to find new uses for spent distiller’s grain — something Kentucky has in spades — and for corn. Walsh said the product could also create an additional revenue stream for farmers who might otherwise lose money on their agriculture waste.

“We’re always looking for new opportunities to add value and lower the cost of biofuels,” Satyavolu said.

At the next Beer with a Scientist event, Tommy Roussel, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Louisville, will explain how scientists take their inventions from the lab to the marketplace.

Roussel is an academic scientist who is always trying to bring his work to market. He is involved in research and development using microfabricated sensor technologies and custom instrumentation in support of the development of biomedical and diagnostic applications. He worked with Andrea Behrman, PhD, PT, of UofL in the development of a to improve therapy for children with spinal cord injuries.

“The journey from invention to product: A scientist’s tale of failure, failure, failure, success!” will cover intellectual property (why bother?), the lean startup methodology (who’s your customer and where is the market?) and a few projects that didn’t quite make it outside the laboratory walls.

Roussel’s talk begins at 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6, at , 8023 Catherine Lane. A 30-minute presentation will be followed by an informal Q&A session.

The technology is the first FDA approval in a new category for products used during spine surgery that have both mechanical and electrical components.

The device,Ěýpatented through the ,Ěýconsists of a series of strain sensors placed on the titanium rods, which are implanted into the body to hold the vertebrae in place after a spinal fusion surgery.ĚýSpinal fusion, which “fuses” vertebrae together, is usually .

The device can help doctors see whether the spine is solidly fusing after the surgery.ĚýThe sensors measure the strain on the rods, which indicates the level of strain on the spine.Ěý

Currently, the only way to determine that is through an additional exploratory surgery, said Dr. John Naber, a UofL professor who worked on the technology. But the UofL-invented system allows doctors to determine that from outside the body.

“The big payoff is to eliminate unnecessary surgeries,” said Naber,Ěýwho also is associate chair of electrical and computer engineering.

According to a 2019 article in the journal analyzing lumbar fusion rates, about 200,000 spinal fusion surgeries are performed every year in the U.S. And, the number of elective fusion surgeries has increased by more than 60% since 2004.

The device was invented by a team that included the ’s Drs. Naber, Kevin Walsh, William Hnat and Michael Voor, along with Leatherman’s Spine Center orthopedic surgeon Dr. Randy Puno.

The technology is now marketed by Ohio-based Intellirod Spine Inc. as the “LOADPRO sensing system.”

Ric Navarro, CEO of Intellirod, said the company plans to commercially launch the product at the Cleveland Clinic and the Leatherman Spine Center in Louisville now that it has FDA approval. The company plans to expand its launch sites in the near future.

“We are delighted to be the first device in this new FDA product category for spine to give the surgeon unprecedented new information about how much strain is on their rods as they correct a deformity,” he said.

Listen to a radio interview with Naber on .

The startup, Pascal Tags, was founded byĚýJ.B. Speed School of Engineering student, Brandon Young, and recent College of Business graduate, Haley Pfeiffer. Young will pitch the company’sĚý at the competition in November at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Alexandria, Virginia.ĚýĚý

“For Pascal Tags, I think the opportunity is potentially once in a life time,” Young said. “It is very humbling being the first representative from the state of Kentucky and the University of Louisville.”

He and other collegiate finalists will presentĚýtheir inventions to a panel of judges that includes National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees and USPTO officials and showcase their work at the Collegiate Inventors Competition Expo.

“We will get to present and discuss our technology with very distinguished individuals from the Hall of Fame, compete against other great innovators, and reach an audience most innovators do not have the chance to in college,” Young said.

Pascal Tags, a , has developed smart tags thatĚýhelp track inventory.ĚýYoung invented the technology with his faculty mentor, Dr. Thad Druffel of the UofL Conn Center for Renewable Energy Research.Ěý

The team worked with the UofL to protect and commercialize their intellectual property.ĚýPascal Tags also participated in UofL’s entrepreneurship training and theĚýĚýsite programĚýfor translational research.Ěý

“This is great honor and opportunity for Brandon and the University,” Druffel said. “With a good idea and a lot of hard work, Brandon has definitely earned his place among the top collegiate innovators.”Ěý