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The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) today named two Texas A&M University faculty-researchers – Carrie L. Byington and Leif B. Andersson – among its 155 NAI Fellows for 2017. Induction ceremonies are set for April 5, 2018, during the Seventh Annual NAI Conference in Washington, D.C.
Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional accolade bestowed solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact of quality of life, economic development and welfare of society.
Byington serves as dean of the Texas A&M College of Medicine, senior vice president of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center and vice chancellor for health services at The Texas A&M University System. A federally funded investigator with continuous support as principal or co-investigator totaling about $80 million since 1998, Byington conducts research that spans the translational spectrum from basic laboratory science to health services research. Working with a group of laboratory scientists and engineers, Byington helped develop a diagnostic system called FilmArray with BioFire Diagnostics in Salt Lake City, Utah, to determine the cause of fever. FilmArray, with panels that can be used to identify almost 100 different pathogens, is now used in thousands of hospitals in North America and all over the world to diagnose causes of fever, respiratory or gastrointestinal illnesses, and even meningitis or sepsis. Byington has had numerous career accomplishments including election into the National Academy of Medicine and awards from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. She currently serves as chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Infectious Diseases, which prepares all policies related to pediatric infectious diseases and vaccines and produces the Red Book—a resource used by pediatricians around the world in the treatment of childhood infectious diseases. She also served as chair of the Infectious Diseases Advisory Group to the U.S. Olympic Committee and was tasked with protecting Team USA athletes and staff during the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Andersson is a professor in the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences and a professor in functional genomics at Uppsala University, Sweden. Among the world’s most renowned scholars in the genomic and molecular study of domestic animals, Andersson has carved a scientific niche by approaching farm animals as model organisms, analyzing interbreeding among species of farm animals, such as between wild boars and domestic pigs, to identify the genes and mutations that affect specific traits. He investigates how the mutations may alter the function and regulation of the genes. Andersson and his research team compare genomes from many species of domestic animals to discover the molecular mechanisms and underlying traits that are important to human and veterinary medicine. They study the genetic background of phenotypic traits, such as gaits in horses as well as disorders such as cancer, metabolic syndrome and inflammatory diseases. Their discoveries provide insights in genetics, animal breeding, evolution and biomedical research. A member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (Foreign Associate), the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society, Andersson has received the Thureus Prize in Natural History and Medicine from the Royal Society of Sciences; the Linneus Prize in Zoology from the Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Sweden; the Hilda and Alfred Eriksson’s Prize in Medicine from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; and the Olof Rudbeck Prize from Uppsala Medical Society. He was a 2013-14 Faculty Fellow in Texas A&M’s Hagler Institute for Advanced Study. In 2014, he received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture to honor his use of cutting-edge genomic technologies in animal research.
Byington and Andersson are the sixth and seventh Texas A&M faculty-researchers to be selected since the NAI named its charter fellows in 2012. The previous selections are R. Bowen Loftin, former president of Texas A&M; B. Don Russell, University Distinguished Professor and holder of the Harry E. Bovay, Jr. Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering; Marlan Scully, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, College of Science; the late Christodoulos A. Floudas, formerly the director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute and holder of the Erle Nye ’59 Chair for Engineering Excellence in the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering; and John L. Junkins, founding director of Texas A&M University’s Hagler Institute for Advanced Study as well as a University Distinguished Professor, a Regents Professor, and holder of the Royce E. Wisenbaker Chair in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, College of Engineering, and director of the Land, Air and Space Robotics Laboratory and of the Center for Mechanics and Control, both at Texas A&M.
Today’s announcement brings the total of NAI Fellows to 912 NAI Fellows, representing more than 250 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes. The 2017 Fellows are named inventors on nearly 6,000 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 32,000 issued U.S. patents. Election to NAI Fellow status is accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.
Two companies that are commercializing technology developed at Texas A&M University placed first and second in China’s 2017 InnoSTARS life science competition, Texas A&M Technology Commercialization announced today. The companies are among 300 that competed across several industry sectors for the opportunity to take part in business-to-business matchmaking with partners and investors in China.
First place went to Stream Biomedical, Inc., a biotech company founded in 2016 to address unmet therapeutic needs for individuals suffering from neurologic trauma or degeneration. The award recognizes Stream’s efforts to commercialize Perlecan Domain V, a recombinant protein licensed exclusively from Texas A&M, as a new therapeutic to facilitate recovery from the effects of stroke, brain injury or spinal cord injury. Dr. Gregory Bix, formerly a professor in the Texas A&M College of Medicine, developed the technology.
Second place went to CorInnova, Inc., a medical device company in Houston that commercializes technology developed by Dr. John C. Criscione, a Professor in the Texas A&M College of Engineering. The award honors a technology called EpicHeart,™ which is a cardiac compression device that can be delivered and secured to the heart in a minimally invasive manner for patients suffering from congestive heart failure. Due to their highly invasive nature and high rates of complications, current device technologies treat less than 2 percent of the 1 million end-stage patients in need of therapy. CorInnova technology could potentially treat up to 28 percent or 280,000 of these patients annually due to its less invasive nature and lack of blood contact.
The InnoSTARS competition is hosted by the U.S. China Innovation Alliance, the China Science and Technology Exchange Center and the China Association for International Science and Technology Cooperation, and is supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, People’s Republic of China. The event gives U.S.-based innovators and companies a better understanding of how to conduct business in China and opens the door for the winners to network directly with highly qualified partners and investors in China.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) has awarded eight research grants to Texas A&M University totaling more than $9 million. The grants are among 60 new awards totaling more than $102 million that CPRIT recently announced in Austin.
Texas A&M Interim Vice President for Research Karen Butler-Purry said, “For the last eight years, CPRIT has delivered on its mission to provide financial support to cancer research across Texas. By funding these grants, CPRIT continues to demonstrate that Texas A&M, our faculty-researchers and their research teams are substantially advancing the state’s commitment to cancer research, treatment and prevention. We share an ultimate goal with CPRIT: to substantially impact breakthroughs to cure cancer in Texas, across the nation, and around the world.”
In all, Texas A&M garnered a total of $9,057,870 in funding from CPRIT, with slightly more than $7.7 million as academic research grants and $1.35 million for a prevention grant.
The largest of the research grants is a $5,793,075 award to Michael A. Mancini and Peter J. Davies, who serve as leads for the recently established Center for Advanced Microscopy and Image Informatics in the Institute of Biosciences and Technology, College of Medicine. This collaborative core facility provides cancer researchers with access to sophisticated imaging and computational resources that will enable them to address critical questions in both basic and translational cancer research. The funding will support the use of advanced imaging technology to develop new therapies for a wide range of cancers.
CPRIT also funded a $915,000 award to Robert Tsai, an associate professor in the Center for Translational Cancer Research, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, College of Medicine, to support a project titled, “Chemoablation of High-Risk Oral Premalignant Lesions for Sustained Cancer Prevention.” The project will support developing a non-invasive product to destroy mouth lesions that present a high risk of becoming cancerous.
Other academic research awards went to:
* Andrew Phillip West, an assistant professor in the Department of Microbial Pathogenesis and Immunology, College of Medicine, who received a $199,795 grant to fund a project titled, “Mitochondrial DNA Instability Engages a Cancer-Related Interferon Program to Modify the Immune Microenvironment and NAD+ Metabolome and Enhance Melanoma Growth.” The project will study how instability in mitochondrial DNA may encourage the growth of melanoma.
* Yi Xu, an associate professor at the Center for Infectious and Inflammatory Diseases, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, College of Medicine, who received a $200,000 grant to fund a project titled, “Identify Streptococcus gallolyticus Factors Important for Promoting Colorectal Tumor Development.” The funds will support research into how intestinal microbes may contribute to colorectal cancer.
* Yubin Zhou, an assistant professor in the Center for Translational Cancer Research, Institute of Biosciences and Technology, College of Medicine, who received a $200,000 grant to fund a project titled, “Optogenetic Toolkit for Precise Epigenome Editing in Cancer Cells.” The project will devise technology for locating and removing abnormal DNA within human genomes.
* Pushkar Lele, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, College of Engineering, who received a $200,000 grant to fund a project titled, “Etiology and Prevention of Gastric Cancers by Mitigation of H pylori Mechanosensing.” The project will conduct research into preventing gastric cancer through targeted mechanosensitive enzymes.
* Wenshe Liu, a professor and holder of the Emile and Marta Schweikert Professorship in Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, College of Science, who received a $200,000 grant to fund a project titled, “The Preparation of Novel Phage-Displayed Macrocyclic Peptide Libraries for the Identification of Anticancer Agents.” The grant will fund expanding the chemical diversity of a phage display library.
Texas A&M received a $1,350,000 prevention grant from CPRIT, awarded to David McClellan, a clinical assistant professor in the Family Medicine Residency program in the College of Medicine, and Jane Bolin, a professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management in the School of Public Health, to fund a project titled, “Continuation/Expansion of Texas A&M’s Breast and Cervical Cancer Prevention Program for Underserved Women through a Family Medicine Residency.” The grant will allow Texas A&M to continue to provide cancer-prevention services to women in nine Texas counties, while expanding services to eight other counties.
CPRIT provides funding through its academic research, prevention and product development research programs. In 2007, Texas voters approved a constitutional amendment to establish CPRIT with $3 billion in bonds. Since 2009, CPRIT has presented 1,189 grants totaling roughly $1.89 billion to support cancer research, product development and prevention programs. During the 85th Texas Legislature, CPRIT’s Sunset Review date was extended by two years to 2023 to allow the agency to fulfill its constitutional mandate to invest all funds approved by Texas voters. Programs made possible with CPRIT funding have reached all 254 counties of the state; brought more than 135 distinguished researchers to Texas; advanced scientific and clinical knowledge; and provided more than 3.9 million life-saving education, training, prevention and early detection services to Texans.
Image: Division of Research
Seven faculty members at Texas A&M University were named Arts & Humanities Fellows for 2017 during an awards luncheon on May 5 at the University Club. Each fellowship includes a three-year grant of $15,000 to support a scholarly or creative project.
Texas A&M Vice President for Research Glen A. Laine said, “The Arts & Humanities Fellows Program is designed to stimulate interactions among scholarly and artistic faculty on our campus, across the nation and around the world while also recognizing extraordinary scholarship and creativity. This outstanding program creates a supportive environment for these faculty members so they may advance their work while they build, strengthen and sustain long-term relationships outside their chosen disciplines.”
A peer-review panel selected each recipient based on merit and originality, professional qualifications, clarity, benefit to the public and the quality of the overall presentation. Fellowship applications were open to all Texas A&M faculty who engage in scholarship in the humanities or in creative work in the arts.
* Arts & Humanities Fellowships for 2017 were presented to the following faculty members, all of whom are in the College of Liberal Arts:
* Ira Dworkin, an assistant professor in the Department of English, specializes in African American and African Diaspora literature, American literature and culture, race and ethnicity studies, and translational literatures.
* Angela P. Hudson, an associate professor in the Department of History, focuses her research and teaching on American Indian history; race, ethnicity, and migration; Afro-native history; history of American Indians in the U.S. South; Mormon history; the history of medicine; comparative border studies; American Indians and U.S. popular culture; historiography; and 19th century U.S. history.
* Jun Lei, an assistant professor in the Department of International Studies, conducts research on the history of sexuality and gender issues represented in 20th century Chinese literature, film and visual media.
* Jeffrey M. Morris, an associate professor in the Department of Performance Studies, composes for traditional instruments, fixed electronic media, and interactive electronics.
* Martin P. Regan, an associate professor and associate head of the Department of Performance Studies, has composed more than 70 works for traditional Japanese instruments and since 2002 has been affiliated with AURA-J—one of Japan’s premiere performance ensembles of contemporary-traditional Japanese music.
* Adam R. Seipp, a professor in the Department of History, concentrates his research on war and social change in modern Germany, particularly the period since 1945.
* Diego von Vacano, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, concentrates his research interests on political theory, political philosophy, the history of political thought, comparative political theory, and Hispanic/Latin American thought.
Image: Technology Commercialization
Two Texas A&M University faculty members each received an Innovation Award from Texas A&M Technology Commercialization (TTC) during an awards luncheon on May 4. The annual award recognizes researchers whose work exemplifies the spirit of innovation within The Texas A&M University System.
TTC presented the awards during its 2017 Patent and Innovation Awards Luncheon at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center in the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M. The event also recognized 88 faculty members and other researchers from across the A&M System who secured U.S. patents or plant variety protection certificates for their innovations during the 2016 calendar year.
Texas A&M Provost and Executive Vice President Karan L Watson said, “Texas A&M faculty strive for excellence as comprehensive scholars, including excellent teaching, research, discovery and impact. These awards acknowledge their success in applying new knowledge to the issues of our day, through partnership with industry, commercialization of new ideas and transfer of knowledge to the people of our state, nation and world.”
TTC presented Innovation Awards to:
* Gregory A. Sword, a professor and holder of the Charles R. Parencia Chair in Cotton Entomology, Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Sword’s research led to collaboration with an industry partner, which has subsequently produced a commercially available seed treatment. The seed treatment allows cottonseed plagued by dwindling irrigation water and drought to produce more fiber.
* Shuhua “Joshua” Yuan, an associate professor in the Department of Plant Pathology and Microbiology, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has employed integrated and multidisciplinary approaches to address important issues in bioenergy and plant biology. He has led more than $9.8 million in major research initiatives from the U.S. Department of Energy, and his lab has pioneered lignin conversion and photosynthetic hydrocarbon production.
In addition, TTC presented 45 Patent Awards to 64 faculty members and other researchers from Texas A&M, the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Texas A&M AgriLife Research, plus a faculty member from Texas A&M University-Kingsville and another from West Texas A&M University, whose inventions were granted patent protection by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during 2016.
TTC also gave six Plant Variety Protection Certificate Awards to 23 researchers from Texas A&M and Texas A&M AgriLife whose plant varieties were granted certificates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Plant Variety Protection Office during 2016.
Twenty-one of the world’s most celebrated scholars—including two recipients of the Nobel Prize in physics—will share their insights in genomics, medicine, literature, physics and information technology during a Feb. 22-24 symposium presented by the Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University.
The symposium will offer five sessions over two-and-a-half days, beginning with an official welcome from The Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 22, in the Hawking Auditorium of the Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, 576 University Dr., on Texas A&M’s main campus.
During the symposium’s third session on Thursday afternoon, Feb. 23, University President Michael K. Young and A&M System Regent Robert L. Albritton will provide welcoming remarks.
“We launched the Institute for Advanced Study in 2010 on the premise that the finest universities in the world have access to the finest minds in the world,” Founding Director John L. Junkins said. “This symposium is a clear reflection of that premise. We are bringing a collection of the world’s finest minds to College Station with the goal of inspiring our amazing students and our stellar faculty to even greater academic heights.”
Among the presenters are 11 Faculty Fellows from the Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University. They are, in order of appearance: Manfred Schartl, Richard Gibbs, Robert Levine, Wolfgang Schleich, Roy Glauber, Robert Calderbank, Ingrid Daubechies, Maryellen Giger, Alan Needleman and Susan Suleiman.
Admission is free and open to the general public.
Wednesday, Feb. 22
1:30 to 4:50 p.m. – Genetics and Medicine: Manfred Schartl, professor and chairman, Physiological Chemistry Biocenter, Medical School, University of Würzburg, Germany; Richard Gibbs, founding director, Human Genome Sequencing Center, Baylor College of Medicine; James E. Womack, University Distinguished Professor, College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M; and Arthur L. Beaudet, professor of molecular and human genetics and pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Thursday, Feb. 23
8:30 a.m. to noon – Literary Democracy: Robert S. Levine, Distinguished Professor of English, University of Maryland; Ed Folsom, Roy J. Carver Professor of English, University of Iowa; Wai Chee Dimock, William Lampson Professor of English and American Studies, Yale University; and Jerome Loving, University Distinguished Professor of English, College of Liberal Arts, Texas A&M.
1:30 to 3:10 p.m. – The Nobel Foundation Celebrates Quantum Mechanics: Girish Agarwal, professor, Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, Texas A&M; Wolfgang Schleich, Distinguished Professor of quantum physics, University of Ulm, Germany; and Marlan Scully, University Distinguished Professor, Institute of Quantum Science and Engineering, Texas A&M.
3:50 to 5 p.m. – Special Physics Colloquium, featuring two recipients of the Nobel Prize in physics: David Lee, University Distinguished Professor of physics and astronomy, College of Science, Texas A&M and Roy Glauber, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Emeritus, Harvard University and Eminent Scholar in Residence and visiting professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Texas A&M.
Friday, Feb. 24
8:30 a.m. to noon – Information and Computation, Tools for Better Living: Robert Calderbank, director of the Information Initiative and professor of mathematics and electrical engineering, Duke University; Ingrid Daubechies, James B. Duke Professor of Mathematics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University; Maryellen L. Giger, A. N. Pritzker Professor of Radiology/Medical Physics, The University of Chicago; and Alan Needleman, TEES Distinguished Research Professor, College of Engineering and College of Science, Texas A&M.
1:30 to 4 p.m. – Writing in Dark Times: Susan Suleiman, C. Douglas Dillon Research Professor of the Civilization of France and research professor of comparative literature, Harvard University; Maurice Samuels, Betty Jane Anlyan Professor of French, Yale University; Lynn Higgins, Edward Tuck Professor of French and professor of comparative literature and film studies, Dartmouth College; and Henry Rousso, director of research, French National Center for Scientific Research, Paris.
About the Institute for Advanced Study at Texas A&M University: The Institute for Advanced Study was established in December 2010 by The Texas A&M University System Board of Regents to build on the growing academic reputation of Texas A&M and to provide a framework to attract top scholars from throughout the nation and abroad for appointments of up to a year. The selection of Faculty Fellows initiates with faculty nominations of National Academies and Nobel Prize-caliber scholars who align with existing strengths and ambitions of the University. To learn more, visit http://tias.tamu.edu