{"id":369392,"date":"2019-04-16T12:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T16:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=369392"},"modified":"2025-11-19T07:59:41","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T12:59:41","slug":"rochester-women-inventors-patent-holders-369392","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/rochester-women-inventors-patent-holders-369392\/","title":{"rendered":"Women of invention: How Rochester faculty find success as patent-holders"},"content":{"rendered":"

They create novel devices that enable real-time biopsies, light the way for robotic surgery, and help independent-minded teens manage their asthma.<\/p>\n

They develop new technologies to target the delivery of drug therapies with unprecedented accuracy,\u00a0to help stroke victims regain their sight, and to vaccinate people with a simple, wearable skin patch that could have global impact.<\/p>\n

Lisa Beck, Danielle Benoit, Paula Doyle, Hykekyun Rhee, Krystel Huxlin, and Jannick Rolland are among the women inventors who have placed the University of Rochester in an enviable position.<\/p>\n

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Rochester ranked fourth among US universities<\/a> during 2011\u20132015 for the percentage of patent holders who are women.<\/p>\n

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Women of Invention:<\/strong> A Newscenter series<\/h2>\n
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\"Lisa<\/a><\/p>\n

Lisa Beck<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Dean\u2019s Professor in the Department of Dermatology<\/strong><\/em>
\nA skin patch developed by Beck and her colleagues could one day be used to deliver vaccines without the pain and expense of needles.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Krystal<\/a><\/p>\n

Krystel Huxlin<\/a><\/strong><\/h4>\n

James V. Aquavella, M.D. Professor in Ophthalmology<\/strong><\/em>
\nFor patients with vision loss after a stroke or brain injury, a simple therapy device developed by Huxlin could help train the eye to see again.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Hyekyun<\/a><\/p>\n

Hyekyun Rhee<\/a><\/h4>\n

Professor, Endowed Chair for Nursing Science<\/strong><\/em>
\nFor teens who have lived with asthma their entire lives, Rhee wondered if the gadgets and apps teens love could help them stay on top of their symptoms and take control of their care.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
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\"Jannick<\/a><\/p>\n

Jannick Rolland<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n

Brian J. Thompson Professor of Optical Engineering<\/strong><\/em>
\nThe director of the Center of Freeform Optics, Rolland has 35 patents to her name and is listed among the top women pioneers in augmented and virtual reality. And she almost became a dancer. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Danielle<\/a><\/p>\n

Danielle Benoit<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n

Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering<\/strong><\/em>
\nFrom a childhood spent tinkering in the Maine woods, Benoit is now the author or coauthor of nine approved or pending patents, mostly focused on the targeted delivery of drug therapies.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"Paula<\/a><\/p>\n

Paula Doyle<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n

Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology<\/strong><\/em>
\nDoyle has gone from a Paris fashion house to the rain forests of Papua New Guinea to the operating room, where a challenging robotic surgery led to the invention of a novel surgical \u201cflashlight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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How did Rochester achieve this distinction? What brought these women to the University\u2014and what enabled them to thrive?<\/p>\n

Conversations with these inventors suggest important benefits to conducting research at Rochester.<\/p>\n

First, while many other Tier 1 research institutions have their medical campuses and their science and engineering departments across town, or even across the state from one another, at Rochester they\u2019re across the street. That proximity, combined with a collegial atmosphere, encourages collaboration across disciplines.<\/p>\n

The University has also established programs to support inventors with seed funding and technology transfer assistance. The idea is to encourage risk-taking, building a culture of entrepreneurship in the process.<\/p>\n

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Patents and how they work<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Patents provide the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or importing an invention, as defined in the claims at the end of a US patent. According to the US Patent Office, they can be obtained for \u201cany new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter\u201d or for \u201cany new and useful improvement thereof.\u201d<\/p>\n

Patents are distinct from trademarks and copyrights. Trademarks protect words, names, symbols, or devices that are used with goods in trade (e.g., as brand names) to indicate the source of the goods and to distinguish them from the goods of others. Copyrights protect “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works, both published and unpublished.<\/p>\n

Generally, the term of a new patent is 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed. Regular maintenance fees must be paid at stipulated times to maintain the patent in force.<\/p>\n

After the patent has expired, anyone may make, use, offer for sale, or sell or import the invention without permission of the patentee<\/a>, provided that matter covered by other unexpired patents is not used.<\/p>\n

Where do the royalties go?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980<\/a> transferred ownership of new technologies arising from federally funded research and development (R&D) from the government to universities and other contractors who could then obtain patents and then license the technologies to firms or launch start-up companies.<\/p>\n

The goal was to make it easier for new technologies to reach the marketplace. Although patenting in US universities occurred prior to the passage of Bayh-Dole Act, it was far from systematic.<\/p>\n

At Rochester, royalties from licensed technologies are split among the inventors, their departments, their schools, and the University\u2019s Intellectual Property (IP) pool<\/a> on a sliding scale based on the amount of royalties received.<\/p>\n

Of the first $50,000 received, for example, 50 percent goes to the inventors, 20 percent to the department, 10 percent to the school or college, and 20 percent to the IP pool.<\/p>\n

For the next $200,00 in royalties, the split is 40-20-15-25, and above $250,000, it is 35-20-20-25.<\/p>\n

The distribution is designed to create a \u201cvirtuous cycle\u201d in which proceeds from inventions go back into supporting new research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Proximity fosters collaboration<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a great academic environment,\u201d says Doyle, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. She was still a fellow at the University, frustrated after performing a particularly tricky robotic surgery, when she told a meeting of other fellows and their faculty mentors how nice it would be to \u201chave a flashlight\u201d to further illuminate what she was operating on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could do that,\u201d was the immediate response from faculty mentors Ron Wood and Jay Reeder.<\/p>\n

Doyle is now the chief medical officer of Endoglow<\/a>, a startup that has developed her idea into a disposable device to illuminate internal organs and tissue during robotic surgery.<\/p>\n

As a member of the Association of American Universities<\/a>, Rochester is one of the nation\u2019s 60 leading research institutions. The Medical Center<\/a>\u2014one of 120 academic medical centers in the nation\u2014includes programs in biochemistry, microbiology and immunology, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology, oral biology, and musculoskeletal research that rank in the top 15 in National Institutes of Health funding.<\/p>\n

That reputation was a big part of what attracted Doyle to Rochester. She initially applied for a residency. She wasn\u2019t accepted, but liked what she saw during her interviews. She then applied, successfully, to do her fellowship here.<\/p>\n

The proximity of the Medical Center to the University\u2019s River Campus was a big draw for Rolland, an optical engineer at the Institute of Optics<\/a> who has 35 patents and is helping pioneer a new technology as director of the Center for Freeform Optics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That proximity was also a big draw for Benoit, a biomedical engineer at the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences<\/a> who joined Rochester hoping to collaborate with medical researchers on targeted drug delivery.<\/p>\n

That kind of collaboration was difficult while Benoit was working toward her PhD at the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. The university\u2019s medical school was in Denver. \u201cIt was really, really hard to develop relationships with people who were 45 minutes away,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

At Rochester, 981 feet (about a five-minute walk) is all that separates the Medical Center from Goergen Hall, where Benoit has her office on the River Campus.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s made it much easier for her to connect with Medical Center researchers in orthopaedics, biomedical genetics, hematology\/oncology, and endocrinology. Her collaboration with Edward Puzas, professor of orthopaedics, has resulted in patented technology for the targeted delivery of small molecule drugs to treat a range of bone disorders.<\/p>\n

\u2018People want the best science to occur\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Rhee has also benefited from the close proximity of medicine and engineering at Rochester. The professor of nursing researches ways to help teens with chronic asthma. When she wanted to create a device they could wear to monitor their symptoms, Rhee needed engineering help.<\/p>\n

She was directed to the Center for Future Health, which led to a collaboration with Mark Bocko, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, on the River Campus. Together they developed an automated device for asthma management (ADAM), which has since been licensed by a startup called Healthcare Originals.<\/p>\n

Moreover, Rhee\u2019s frequent trips back and forth across Elmwood Avenue helped her connect with another River Campus researcher\u2014James Allen, a professor of computer science. Rhee and Allen are collaborating on a mobile phone-based asthma self-management device that can \u201cunderstand\u201d and incorporate the texting language teens use.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so easy to navigate and find people to work with,\u201d says Rhee. \u201cAnd people are so willing, so open to help.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benoit concurs. During her career she\u2019s been at schools where labs\u2014especially those doing closely related research\u2014rarely interact. \u201cThe whole emphasis is \u2018Who\u2019s going to that new idea first?\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cHere I find that people really want to interact; they want the best science to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

That interaction is also exemplified in several University research centers that pull together faculty and students from multiple departments.<\/p>\n

The Center for Visual Science<\/a>, for example, is a collaboration of nearly 40 labs from seven different departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey cover every aspect of vision from optics to computational neuroscience, from genetics to higher level cognition involving vision decision-making. It has been vital to me and my work,\u201d says Huxlin, who has patented a physical therapy approach to helping stroke and injury victims recover their sight.<\/p>\n

She has also collaborated on a licensed technology that could transform eye care, using femtosecond lasers to \u201cwrite\u201d vision correction into contact lenses, intraocular lenses, and even directly into the human cornea, noninvasively.<\/p>\n

Programs support risk taking<\/strong><\/h3>\n

There\u2019s also institutional support for researchers interested in developing new technologies.<\/p>\n

Rhee, for instance, received a Provost\u2019s Multidisciplinary Award from the University to help fund her project with Allen. The awards, given to support promising, high-risk projects, have since been renamed University Research Awards<\/a>. Last year the University doubled the total funding for the awards from $500,000 to $1 million annually.<\/p>\n

UR Ventures<\/a>, the University\u2019s technology transfer office, also provides funding for researchers whose technologies have clear commercial potential, but require further development to interest companies and investors.<\/p>\n

A UR Ventures Technology Development Fund<\/a> (TDF) award was the first funding Doyle and her collaborators received. \u201cThat\u2019s what really enabled us to get this out of the lab and cover the costs of making some prototypes,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n

A TDF award also helped Beck\u00a0and her collaborators accrue more data on the efficacy of the skin patch they\u2019ve developed to deliver vaccines and other drug therapies.<\/p>\n

UR Ventures was formed five years ago when separate technology transfer offices at the Medical Center and River Campus were combined into one. Under Associate Vice President Scott Catlin, UR Ventures has taken a more proactive approach to patents than was customary in the past.<\/p>\n

When researchers disclose a new invention, the office makes an initial assessment of its patentability and commercial viability, engaging the inventors and legal counsel in the process, as well as companies, investors, and entrepreneurs whenever possible. UR Ventures then actively supports and promotes those that seem most promising through patent protection, business development, and marketing.<\/p>\n

\u2018Entrepreneurism is part of who we are\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Doyle is now immersed in supervising clinic trials and navigating the FDA approval process as the chief medical officer of Endoglow.<\/p>\n

\u201cI definitely could not have done any of this without the University,\u201d says Doyle. \u201cIt provides not only the basic infrastructure, like having labs, but also having access to brilliant people to collaborate with and having the flexibility to pursue a novel idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, both her department chair Eva Pressman, the Henry A. Thiede Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and immediate supervisor Erin Duecy have allowed her to work part-time as an assistant professor while she helps Endoglow get started.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout their support I wouldn\u2019t have been able to really pursue this,\u201d Doyle says.<\/p>\n

No wonder University President Richard Feldman says: \u201cThe entrepreneurial spirit is found in every corner of this institution.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a message<\/a> on the University\u2019s entrepreneurial mission, he said he was \u201cparticularly proud\u201d of the University\u2019s high ranking among institutions with women patent holders. He also noted that the Financial Times<\/em> of London had recently placed the University\u2019s Simon Business School among the top 10 MBA programs for entrepreneurship in the US and among the top 20 MBAs for entrepreneurship in the world<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s the next medical breakthrough, the next patent, or the next sustainable plan to help people in need, entrepreneurism is part of who we are and it consistently informs our educational mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI suppose it\u2019s no surprise that people have taken notice.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"two
Cristina Canavesi, right, former PhD student at the University of Rochester and her mentor, Jannick Rolland, professor of optics and the director of the Center for Freeform Optics. The two are cofounders of LighTopTech, a startup working to develop a noninvasive biopsy device that can render high-resolution images of cells just below the surface of living tissues such as skin or the cornea. \u201cTo have two women scientists as cofounders of a company is unusual,\u201d Rolland says. \u201cIt\u2019s a fantastic example for other women to realize their potential as well.\u201d\u00a0 (University of Rochester photo \/ J. Adam Fenster)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A culture of entrepreneurship<\/strong><\/h3>\n

University of Rochester inventors have created:<\/p>\n