UCLA Invents 2009

D R I V I N G

TO MARKET

Volume IV, 2009Volume IV, 2009

UCLAINVENTSO F F I C E o f I N T E L L E C T U A L P R O P E R T Y

innovation

Letter from the Vice Provost

Nurturing New Ideas

If the e-Shoe Fits

A Common Language

Stem Cells Simplified

The Art of Survival

On the Water Front

Diagnoses Done Right

Brain Watch

Taking the Uncertainty out of Epilepsy

PET Shop Boys

My Antibody, Myself

After the Flood

Spirit of Invention

OIP @ A Glance

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“They do more than pass out knowledge around here. They create it.”

C O N T E N T S

We look forward to speaking with you. To contact us,

please visit: www.oip.ucla.edu/contacts

LETTER FROM THE VICE PROVOST

D r i v i n g I n n o v a t i o n t o M a r k e t

Welcome to our fourth volume of UCLAInvents. As we go to

press, the U.S. faces the deepest recession in 80 years. There is

no more important time to focus on invention. The return of a

vibrant economy for California, the U.S. and indeed the world

depends on talented people who produce novel ideas — and

have the capacity to transform those inventions into products

and services with benefit to the public.

This UCLAInvents highlights some extraordinary faculty mem-

bers and the novel ideas they pro-

duce. The potential impact of these

ideas is great. Ultimately, they may

help people in the areas of health,

the environment, even home design.

We also highlight the synergis-

tic relationship between our gift-

ed faculty and students. Every

year, undergraduate and graduate

students and postdoctoral schol-

ars are active participants in

UCLA’s inventive process. Age is

no bar to innovation: the

youngest inventor on record for

the U.S. is Julian Pavone, age 4,

who invented the “Abracadabra” Stain Cover-Up. Our inventive

students add another dimension to faculty efforts.

Like a published manuscript, a patent application can be the

first step in disseminating new knowledge. But a novel idea can-

not stand alone. Innovation must be encouraged and nurtured to

fruition. So UCLAInvents also spotlights experiments in incuba-

tion, including startups that share lab space to reduce overhead

and to cross-pollinate different disciplines and technologies.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue as much as we’ve enjoyed

preparing it. For more stories, technology and ideas on how to

manage your intellectual property, check out our website at

www.oip.ucla.edu.

Kathryn Atchison,D.D.S.,M.P.H.

U C L A O F F I C E O F I N T E L L E C T U A L P R O P E R T Y | 2 0 0 9 | 01

N u r t u r i n g N e w I d e a s

Michael Phelps, Ph.D.

joined forces in 2007 to create Momentum Biosciences, a business incubator locat-

ed in Culver City.

“Part of our goal,” says Phelps, “is to retain and attract creative people to help

rebuild our local economy in new ways. Universities throughout California must all

take the initiative to invigorate the pioneering spirit that historically made California

an innovative leader in areas ranging from agriculture to microcircuit electronics and

information technology. The second part of our mission is to create an environment

where faculty members themselves are owners of these companies. Ownership builds

pride and drive. The faculty are also a creative force in redefining the relationship

between the academic and commercial worlds at the entrepreneurial level, where new

experiments can be performed in science and technology, along with new business

models developed under criteria of the very different world ahead.”

The Momentum portfolio has reached a peak of six startups based on technolo-

gy primarily licensed from UCLA. They share laboratory facilities and office space,

and also have access to a variety of essential services ranging from personnel,

accounting and insurance to finance and license agreement negotiation. This

approach reduces costs, allowing startups to focus the bulk of their attention and

resources on product development.

“A typical biotech company will spend approximately $1.5 million in the first year,”

says Phelps. “About a million will be spent on all the services and activities necessary

to operate a business, and only half a million on product development. Momentum

established high-quality, low-cost services shared across the startups such that they

spend about two-thirds of their funds on product development and only one-third on

operations. The intent of Momentum is to incubate startups for 12 to 18 months to

build value sufficient for them to be capitalized on their own or close them.”

To date, three companies have been spun out, one has been put in hibernation

while further research is pursued within the university, and two more are being

added. Momentum was established after a proposal was submitted for review by

university administration.

While the major focus is on biomedical sciences, primarily molecular diagnostics

and therapeutics, other promising areas are also being pursued. For example,

Richard Kaner, a professor in UCLA’s Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry,

has a research focus on polymers — or plastics — that conduct electricity. Using

recent advances in nanotechnology, Kaner and his colleagues have been able to over-

come two problems that have prevented industry from exploiting the considerable

promise of these unique materials.

“Conducting polymers don’t dissolve, and they don’t melt,” Kaner explains. “But

we found that if you make nano forms of these polymers, they will disperse in water.

And once you have water-based conducting polymers, you can spray coat them, spin

coat them, and use them like paint.”

This opens the door to many possible applications, including flexible electronic

sensors and even conducting fibers that could be woven into clothing, potentially

turning everyday apparel into portable — and fashionable — electronic devices, as

E C O N O M I C

When Michael Phelps considers a map of the United

States, he sees a problem. The largest concentration

of biotech companies in the nation is in the Boston

area. And the next highest are in the greater San

Diego and San Francisco areas. In fact, there is a

match between the location of the top 20 universi-

ties in America and the density of biotech compa-

nies, with one exception: the Los Angeles area.

Hoping to help change this situation, Phelps and

a number of colleagues at UCLA and Caltech

02 | 2 0 0 9 | U C L A O F F I C E O F I N T E L L E C T U A L P R O P E R T Y

well as anti-static coatings and electromagnetic shielding materials for computers

and other electronic components.

Kaner recalls that Momentum approached him with the idea of starting a compa-

ny in the incubator. “The Momentum people were looking at UCLA technology that

hadn’t yet been licensed, and they noticed a lot of patents from my group involved

with conducting polymers, and they saw an interesting fit. That’s what got us started.”

Fibron Technologies, the company that emerged with Kaner and Chris

Behrenbruch as founders, is one of the startups that recently exited Momentum with

an investment from a Korean company, Kolon Glotech. Fibron, and the other com-

panies that exited Momentum, remain in the Culver City area.

Kaner appreciates the many business services that Momentum provides. But, he

notes, working in the same building with five other startups involving cutting-edge

scientists translating their research into products is the big plus. “With the close

proximity of these other companies, the scientists involved are constantly talking to

each other, so ideas come up that would not normally happen.”

This commitment to moving innovative ideas out of the laboratory and into the

marketplace is shared by UCLA’s Office of Intellectual Property. As a land-grant

institution, The University of California is not only responsible for providing a

quality education to the students enrolled here, it is responsible for giving some-

thing back to the state of California. The extent of OIP’s commitment to this mis-

sion is clearly demonstrated in the new on-campus teaching incubator that UCLA

has established at the facility that also houses the California NanoSystems

Institute (CNSI).

With 2,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratory and office space, the incubator

offers not only a place for product development, it offers a place where research-orient-

ed faculty members can learn about— andmeet— the challenges of the business world.

“We are working to connect the new companies to MBA students who want to

work with them on business plan writing or market plan assessment,” explains

Kathryn Atchison, vice provost, Intellectual Property and Industry Relations. “And

we are also introducing them to law students who would like to learn about IP man-

agement and commercialization. We’re probably going to have six to eight little

companies in there, and they will have access to the core facilities, as well as interns

and fellows who are interested in learning more about the commercialization of

intellectual property.”

Atchison says that “16 or 17” faculty members have approached her thus far,

expressing an interest in becoming part of the incubator. But because space is limited,

a faculty advisory committee has been established to evaluate the various proposals

that have crossed her desk. Members of the committee are drawn from the CNSI, the

School of Medicine, the Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science,

the School of Public Health, the College of Letters and Science, the Anderson School

and the School of Law — a roster that reflects the truly multi-disciplinary nature of

the incubator.

“We believe that the obligations for a land-grant institution for 2009, and mov-

ing forward, have more to do with economic devel-

opment,” says Atchison. “It’s more about things

like business incubators and commercialization

than trying to teach farmers about pest control.”

The roots of the teaching incubator may well

stretch back to UC’s origins as a land-grant college.

But in facilitating the commercialization of the

UCLA faculty’s cutting-edge research, the incubator

brings the original concept in line with the realities

of the 21st century. �

Richard Kaner, Ph.D.


DEVELOPMENT

I f t h e e - S h o e F i t s

When Majid Sarrafzadeh and his wifebrought their newborn daughter homefrom the hospital, they were confrontedwith a problem that all too many parentsface. The child was born prematurelyand required round-the-clock monitor-ing. While this had not presented a sig-nificant problem in the hospital, at homethe couple now faced the daunting chal-lenge of having to maintain a constantvigil over the infant.

“That was truly nerve-wracking for usas parents,” Sarrafzadeh recalls. “Buthaving some background in technology, Ithought, ‘Gee, it would be so easy tobuild a very small device to monitor herbreathing and all that at home instead ofus watching her 24/7.’”

Having “some background” in technol-ogy is perhaps something of an under-

statement. Sarrafzadeh currently serves asthe director of The Embedded andReconfigurable Computing Lab atUCLA’s Computer Science Department,and in large part because of his experiencewith his daughter, he was a driving forcein the creation of the UCLA WirelessHealth Community some seven years ago.The community’s vision is a multidiscipli-nary approach to the challenges facing thehealthcare system, and it includesresearchers from the university’s Schoolsof Engineering, Law, Management,Medicine, Nursing, Public Health, andTheater, Film, and Television.

The multidisciplinary approach isessential, says Sarrafzadeh, because tech-nology is important, but technologyalone won’t solve the problem of spiral-ing healthcare costs. “It’s not that youwill be designing a faster computer orbuilding a better gadget. You’re solvingreal problems, so you have got to belooking at end-to-end systems. You haveto go all the way from design to medicineto public use, and find a way to providefeedback to the doctor. It involvesdesigning an entire system. And this hasits own interesting challenges.”

Sarrafzadeh and his colleagues havebeen working on a variety of projectsranging from smart canes to body sensornetworks to personalized systems thatmonitor exposure to ultraviolet radiation.But the device that is now on the verge ofmaking the transition from laboratory tothe marketplace is a sophisticated elec-tronic shoe that will allow healthcare pro-fessionals to monitor and assess patientswho are experiencing balance problems.

Traditionally, Sarrafzadeh explains,physicians have had to rely on patientsthemselves to report difficulties withkeeping their balance after starting a newmedication, say, or if they are in the early

stages of a diabetic condition. Withpatients perhaps reluctant to report theproblem, or not even realizing the prob-lem exists, this has left many of them sus-ceptible to falls. And with falls costing thehealthcare system an estimated $20 bil-lion annually, Sarrafzadeh and severalcolleagues concluded that there mightwell be a market for a product that couldgive physicians the ability to monitortheir patients’ balance problems remotely.

Working with the Office of IntellectualProperty (OIP), they assembled a groupof investors, drafted a licensing agree-ment with the university and formedMediSens, a company that will bring this“smart shoe” platform to market andexplore the feasibility of commercializingother wireless medical solutions.

“There are many horror stories I haveheard from colleagues in other universi-ties,” says Sarrafzadeh. “But the peoplein the OIP office here were extremelyhelpful and extremely encouraging in ourfirst meetings.”

Maintaining this vital connection tothe university and its resources,MediSens will open an office in the busi-ness incubator that has been establishedat the California NanoSystems Instituteon the UCLA campus. There, the compa-ny will continue to focus on developingproducts that enhance the physician’sability to continuously monitor apatient’s medical condition.

“This is the future,” says Sarrafzadeh,“being able to continuously monitorpeople and create a personalized healthsystem that is tailored to the individual.We don’t envision that any of thesedevices will replace doctors. We envisionthem as helping the doctors make betterand more informed decisions. And this isgoing to reduce healthcare costs tremen-dously as we move forward.”�

Majid Sarrafzadeh, Ph.D.

MediSens


For Jack Judy, the most interesting placein all of science and engineering is theinterface between seemingly unrelatedfields of research. Hence, it is not surpris-ing that shortly after taking an appoint-ment in UCLA’s Department of ElectricalEngineering in 1997, Prof. Judy extendeda hand across disciplines, reaching out tohis colleagues in the university’s medicalschool. A specialist in MEMS — Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems — Judybelieved that, working together,researchers from such different disci-plines could effectively address a widerange of vexing healthcare issues.

“After speaking to many people in thehealth and life sciences, the ones thatseemed the most keen and desperate for atechnology injection in their field werethose associated with the nervous systemand the brain,” Judy recalls. “And frankly,as an electrical engineer who makes cir-cuits and microsystems, I felt a certainaffinity with my colleagues who werestudying neural circuits. Together wequickly recognized the huge opportunitiesthat existed in the combination of thetechnologies I worked on and the kinds ofproblems they were trying to solve.”

With this spirit of cooperation in mind,Judy was instrumental in co-founding theworld’s first formal graduate program inneuroengineering. The goal of the pro-gram is to bring students together in anenvironment where the boundariesbetween engineering and neurosciencebegin to blur. It is here, Judy believes, thatstudents can learn a common languageand recognize mutual interests.

“When you have a neuroscientist talk-ing to an engineer, you often speak pasteach other,” he says. “We sometimes use

the same words and mean completely dif-ferent things. When I say the word ‘vector,’for example, I mean a mathematical con-struct with a direction and magnitude. Adoctor or biologist, though, is thinking ofa plasmid or ring of DNA. Another prob-lem is that engineers with new technologiestypically won’t consider pursuing neuralapplications because they don’t know theyexist. Neuroscientists are also stymiedbecause they don’t know the new tech-nologies exist. Graduates from theNeuroEngineering Program are trained totraverse this disciplinary chasm with ease.”

One of Judy’s students, AlejandroCovalin, has turned out to be particular-ly adept at thinking across disciplines.Covalin earned his undergraduate degreein physics engineering at UniversidadIberoamericana, in Mexico City. Hebegan his professional life working as anew projects engineer in the forestryindustry in his native Mexico. But afteroverseeing the design and construction ofa new sawmill facility, Covalin recallsthat he felt the need to move on. He cameto UCLA in 2000, and, with Judy as hisadvisor, he decided to study the role offeedback mechanisms in the autonomicnervous system.

He researched various options, and afterdiscussing them with UCLA neurosurgeonAntonio De Salles, he turned his attentionto obesity and the role the autonomousnervous system plays in determining meta-bolic rates. Covalin and Judy found thatthere is in fact a region in the brain thatcontrols metabolic activity, and that byintroducing an electric current, it is possi-ble to regulate the metabolic rate.

Having successfully demonstrated thetechnology on small animals, Covalin

and Judy, together with De Salles andLos Angeles-based entrepreneur LeonEkchian, founded NeuroSigma, Inc., in2008. NeuroSigma exclusively licensedthe patent application from UCLA, iscurrently taking steps to obtain FDAapproval for human clinical trials, and ismoving forward with plans to commer-cialize the technology.

“Without Alejandro’s work as a gradu-ate student,” observes Judy, “NeuroSigmawouldn’t be where it is. Without the neu-roengineeing training program, Alejandrowouldn’t be where he is. UCLA isextremely fortunate to have a top-notchmedical school immediately adjacent to atop-notch engineering school. This isanother thing that makes UCLA such afantastic institution.” �

A C o m m o n L a n g u a g e

NeuroSigma

Alejandro Covalin, Ph.D., post-doctoral student, and Jack Judy, Ph.D.



TRANSFER AGREEMENTS

S t e m C e l l s S i m p l i f i e dprocess they have developed uses retroviruses to introduce a set of four specialgenes into normal adult skin cells. These genes effectively reprogram the skincells, causing them to revert to a primitive state. Known as induced pluripotentstem cells (iPSCs), these cells – like embryonic stem cells – have the capacity toturn into any type of cell in the body.

“These four genes basically decide which genes are turned on and turned offin this cell type,” Plath elaborates. “The genes that we put in are highly expressednormally in embryonic stem cells and regulate which genes are expressed in thesecells. So the idea is that by over-expressing them, you can force the embryonicstate onto an adult cell.”

Plath notes that the process of reprogramming the adult cells, however, isboth inefficient and time-consuming. Because not all laboratories are yetequipped to do this work, researchers who want to experiment with iPSCsoften turn to Plath’s lab with requests for both the cells themselves and theretroviruses that are used to carry the four genes to their targets.

Plath is committed to sharing these valuable cells with other scientists, andshe regularly sends cells grown in her lab to universities and research institu-tions around the world. As requests for iPSCs come in, the Office ofIntellectual Property arranges for the material transfer agreements, and therequested cells are shipped directly to the lab or institution. Requests for theretroviruses, originally obtained from the University of Tokyo, are routedthrough ADDGENE, an organization that stocks UCLA’s retroviral vectorsand sends them to researchers who place orders for them. UCLA has enteredinto an agreement with ADDGENE to permit the distribution of these retro-viral vectors to other researchers.

The hope among lay people and many researchers is that healthy tissuesgrown from stem cells may one day be used to replace diseased tissues. Plathacknowledges that this may indeed be possible and even inevitable – some day.In the meantime, she believes that the real promise of stem cell research is indisease modeling.

“There are many, many diseases out there that nobody knows how theydevelop or what goes wrong,” she says. “So now you can take skin cells fromthese patients, turn them into iPSCs and then differentiate them into the celltype of interest. Then see if you can model the disease in the culture dish.”

Plath cites Parkinson’s Disease as a good example. “Often you cannot get tothe neurons that are of interest,” she explains. “You can’t just drill into thebrain and get the neurons out. But with the iPSCs, you can differentiate theiPSCs into neurons and see if anything goes wrong during the differentiation.”

Once the disease has been modeled, researchers might come to understand theunderlying mechanism that triggers the disease, and this in turn could point themin the direction of methods for either preventing or treating it. “It is,” says Plath,“a very good study system.” �

Over the past decade, stem cells have emerged asone of the most promising tools in the world ofmedical science. But despite their considerablepotential for treating disease, stem cells are contro-versial because of moral questions surrounding theuse of stem cells taken from embryos. UCLAresearcher Kathrin Plath notes that even before onedeals with the socio-political ramifications ofresearch on embryonic stem cells, however, there isa more fundamental medical problem.

“That problem is rejection by the immune system,”says Plath, who is an assistant professor of biologicalchemistry at UCLA’s David Geffen School ofMedicine. “It’s like when you do a liver transplantfrom one person to another person. There’s often animmune rejection because the transplanted organ isnot recognized as self by the body.”

Plath and her colleagues are currently working onresearch that could address this problem. The

Kathrin Plath, Ph.D.

With ongoing improvements in our understanding of human biology and thedelivery of quality medical care, a growing number of formerly fatal diseaseshave been largely vanquished in recent years. And that is very good news. Butfor many individuals with cancer, the transition from patient to survivor can bean awkward period of anxiety and confusion. The healthcare professionalswho were once so much a part of their lives have moved on to new patients.The survivors are forced to embark on this new phase of their journey alone.

Patricia Ganz, professor of health services at the UCLA School of PublicHealth, has long been interested in the outcomes of these survivors. So early inher 30-year career as an oncologist, she began to research the effects of cancertreatment, with an eye toward improving the patient’s quality of life after treat-ment. This interest led to a groundbreaking study of breast cancer survivorsthat was funded by the National Cancer Institute.

“We tested three different strategies to see if we could improve recovery afterbreast cancer treatment,” Ganz explains. “The control group received a gener-al informational booklet from the National Cancer Institute that was focused onsurvivors. The second group got a specially developed video, which had severalwomen who were survivors talking about their experience recovering, role mod-eling and talking about the common areas in which it took time to recover andget their lives back together. The third group had an in-person visit with a can-cer health educator and mental health specialist, focusing on the specific issuesor problems that were most difficult for them at the time when they finishedtreatment. They also received the same video, as well as a much more detailedbook that included information on breast cancer-specific issues in recovery. Twoweeks later they received a follow-up phone call from the health educator.”

Somewhat surprisingly, the researchers found that the second method — thevideo alone — resulted in the best outcomes for the cancer survivors.

Having demonstrated that she had created an effective tool for helpingbreast cancer survivors recover from the course of treatment they had just comethrough, Ganz decided to make the video available to the public.

“I’m a very practical and applied person,” says Ganz. “My thought had beenthat if either of the two interventions that we used were effective, we wouldwant to see them used in clinical practice. So I partnered with the NationalCancer Institute, with funding from the Susan G. Komen Breast CancerFoundation, to transform this video into a product that could be distributedthrough the resource center at the National Cancer Institute.”

Before long, Ganz found that she had a hit movie on her hands. Institutionslike the Cleveland Clinic and other hospitals approached her, seeking permis-sion to show the video — now titled “Moving Beyond Breast Cancer” — topatients on their own internal video networks. Ganz turned to the Office ofIntellectual Property to arrange the licensing agreements, and OIP respondedby creating a “ready-to-sign licensing agreement” that interested parties can


complete and sign directly on the Internet.Ganz says that she has no interest in pursuing a

new career in video production. Still, she is happythat she was able to participate in the creation of avideo that has helped so many women come to termswith life after breast cancer.

“This was a great opportunity to translate some-thing from the laboratory out into the population,”she says. “I think that is one of my responsibilitiesand missions.” �

“I’m a very practical and appliedperson. My thought had been thatif either of the two interventionsthat we used were effective,we would want to see them usedin clinical practice.”

Patricia Ganz, M.D.

COPYRIGHT©T h e A r t o f S u r v i v a l

O N T H E W AWATER IS THE PARADOX. To the west, the PacificOcean stretches as far as the eye can see.Wet. Blue. Andinviting. But turn around and you are immediately con-frontedwith the reality on theground.Much of Californiais little more than scrub desert. Harsh. Hostile to life.Given this paradox, it is not surprising that water hasbeen a defining issue in the history of the Golden State.UCLA has long been at the forefront of the struggle

to secure adequate supplies of fresh water forCalifornia’s ever-growing population. That, in fact, hasbeen one of the school’s primary missions, says YoramCohen, the founding director of UCLA’s WaterTechnology Research Center.“The School of Engineering and

Applied Science was founded onfour pillars: energy, transporta-tion, air pollution and water,”he elaborates. “As far backas the 1940s, faculty andresearchers herewerewritingproposals and doing researchon novel technologies for freshwater production.”UCLA patented the first com-

mercially viable reverse-osmosis(RO) membrane in 1960. And althoughthe original UCLA membrane was replaced with moreefficient membranes developed in industry, the UCLAteam has been globally credited with giving birth tomodern ROmembrane technology. Carrying this proudtradition on into the 21st century, Cohen and fellowresearchers Eric Hoek and Julius “Bud” Glater foundedthe UCLA WaTeR Center in 2005. And using theWaTeR Center as their base of operations, they andtheir colleagues have embarked on a mission toadvance our understanding of water use and produc-tion around the globe in order to develop technologiesfor new and economical alternative sources of potable,irrigation and consumptive water uses.“Given the severe water shortage problems we face

in this state,” says Cohen, “we have had to accelerateour efforts to develop and improve technologies forwater reclamation and recycling, while exploring theutilization of water sources that are not currently used

for potable water. This technology has moved veryquickly from traditional technologies that utilize largetreatment basins to membrane-based technology.”This approach has resulted in the development of rev-

olutionary, UCLA-patented, surface nano-structuringtechnology for synthesizing another class of mem-branes for water desalination. With their high resist-ance to fouling and mineral scaling, these membranesrepresent a significant improvement over the technolo-gy that is currently available commercially. WaTeRCenter students and faculty have also developed patent-ed desalination technology that integrates RO desalina-tion with chemical demineralization. And using thistechnology, an unprecedented 95-percent product-water recovery in desalting of brackish water hasbeen achieved.“Effective operation of RO plants, specifi-cally for inland water desalting, requiresmonitoring of the onset of mineral scalingand fouling,” adds Cohen. “And to that end,WaTer Center faculty and students have alsodeveloped a patented online monitor thatinterfaces with the RO plant control system toenable advanced scaling and fouling mitigation.”With membrane-based technology, Cohen notes,

processes occur at a much shorter time scale, and thisin turn requires expertise in process control, in materialscience, in hydrodynamics, in fluid mechanics, in thearea of membrane bioreactors, in the area of desalina-tion, in the area of transport phenomena, in chemistry,and in polymer science. “So when you combine allthose together,” he says, “you realize that the only wayto achieve that is a team approach.”Thus, the research and development work at the

WaTeR Center necessarily reaches across departmentallines. But Cohen points out that the WaTeR Center alsoworks with partners in industry, state and municipalwater agencies, and a number of international partnerssuch as Victoria and RMIT Universities in Australia, theUniversitat Rovira i Virgili (Catalunya, Spain) and BenGurion University in Israel. He counts 20 affiliates in alland notes that one thing they all have in common is aninterest in making better use of the planet’s dwindlingreserves of fresh water.

“As far back as the 1940s, faculty and researchers here were writing pro

Yoram Cohen, Ph.D.


T E R F R O N T“Water is a local resource,” he says, “There is not

much competition in terms of the mining of that resourcefor import or export. So it’s easier to share knowledge.”With this focus on finding solutions to real-world prob-

lems, technology transfer is a natural outgrowth of theWaTeR Center’s day- to-day activities. Cohen notes, forexample, that students from theWaTeR Center have test-ed UCLA’s water desalination technology in the field bothin California and in collaborations with foreign partners.This pays dividends not only for the WaTeR Center’s

affiliates; it also advances UCLA’s mission as an institu-tion of higher learning.“It’s incredibly exciting not just for the faculty

researchers but for the students when they get theopportunity to put the science and engineering that theydeveloped to use during the course of their thesisresearch,” says Cohen. “This gives them an incredibleopportunity, and it also gets them very excited. Theyinteract with professionals, and they see that they canmake a difference in the world.”

posals and doing research on novel technologies for fresh water production.”


TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER: THE ESSENTIAL CONNECTION

WaTeR Center co- founder Eric Hoek, an assistant profes-sor of civil and environmental engineering, understandsthe importance of bringing innovation out of the laborato-ry and turning it into commercially viable technologies.His story, in fact, tells a lot about the way the WaTeRCenter is meeting its responsibilities to both the Universityof California and the community that supports it.Working with his students and colleagues at

theWaTeR Center, Hoek has pioneered a newapproach to making reverse osmosis mem-branes. This technology produces energy-efficient and fouling- resistant membranesby combining nanoparticles with conven-tional membrane polymers.“About six years ago,” he explains, “we

started synthesizing nanoparticles that,when integrated into standard membranepolymers, produce very high water productivityand improve the functionality of the membranes sothey don’t foul as quickly. We expect our ‘thin filmnanocomposite’ membranes to open up new processengineering opportunities for more cost-effective andenvironmentally friendly desalination plant designs.“Our initial research was funded by the UCLA engi-

neering school, but later we received additional supportto further explore nanocomposite ROmembranes from aprivate company — NanoH2O Inc. — and theCalifornia NanoSystems Institute (CNSI).”As a private company, NanoH2O is in business to

turn a profit, of course. But as Hoek points out, theongoing efforts to commercialize his nanocompositemembrane technology serve to inspire and educate hisstudents as well.“It’s infectious as far as the students go,” he says. “It

seems that every student in the group wants todo something that is going to lead to anew company. Obviously, every stu-dent is not going to accomplishthat. But it does add a certainamount of excitement to whatwe do and inspires a sense ofwhat is possible. We have alsolearned a lot about more prac-tical issues related to mem-brane formation and applica-tion, which informs our larger

research efforts on nanotechnology,membranes and water treatment.”

Although he is a bit more circumspect onthe importance of commercializing the technology heand his colleagues develop, this more or less echoesYoram Cohen’s guiding philosophy when it comes to set-ting a long- term course for the WaTeR Center. “I don’tconsider technology transfer to be the act of makingmoney or having a commercial entity that will develop aprocess. I consider it to be a success when the process orintellectual property can be put to good use, and we candemonstrate that it can.” �

Eric Hoek, Ph.D.

PROMETHEUS

Jonathan Braun, M.D.


D iagno se s Done R igh tDr. Jonathan Braun describes inflammatorybowel disease (IBD) as being a “mosaic ofdiseases.” And although this might seem anoddly charming way to describe a conditionthat most of us would rather not thinkabout at all, research that Braun conductedfor the National Institutes of Health in themid-to-late-1990s demonstrated that“mosaic” is indeed an apt description.Working with Dr. Stephan Targan of theCedars-Sinai Medical Center, Braun testedthe hypothesis that IBD is not one disease,but rather a condition caused by a spectrumof inappropriate immune responses to bac-teria that normally live in the human diges-tive system.

“We all have bacteria that live in ourgut,” Braun explains. “The reason thatmost of us are okay is because we let themlive there. We need them to digest our food.In IBD, however, there is an immuneresponse against these bacteria, so thepatient is undergoing constant warfare.”

The nature of this warfare, unfortunate-ly, varies from patient to patient. And,without knowing the precise terms of theengagement, physicians have been forcedto use something of a trial-and-errormethod when treating IBD patients. Thisis both costly and time consuming. Butbased on their understanding of IBD as amosaic of diseases, Braun and Targandeveloped a set of serologies, or bloodtests, that allow physicians to quicklyidentify the exact nature of the patient’simmune reaction.

“These serologies provide a way to readout the details of the inappropriate immuneresponse to the bacteria,” says Braun. “Andthese different markers — the details ofthese markers — allow you to validatewhether somebody actually has the disease,and it allows you to predict the course of thedisease and then guide strategies for treat-ment. None of that was possible before.”

Understanding the breakthroughnature of their discovery, Braun andTargan decided to form a company tobring this diagnostic test to market. Theyapproached a number of venture capital-ists, wrote business plans, and workedclosely with both Cedars-Sinai and UCLAto hammer out licensing agreements andavoid conflict-of-interest issues.

Prometheus Laboratories emerged fromthe negotiations, and on the strength ofBraun and Targan’s discovery — marketedtoday as Prometheus IBD Serology 7 — thecompany has become a major force in thediagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinaldisorders. Having achieved profitability in2004 and 2005, the company reported netsales of $278.1 million in 2008, a figurethat represents a 32.7 percent compoundedannual growth rate since 2004.

Braun currently chairs the Departmentof Pathology and Laboratory Medicine atUCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicineand is no longer involved in Prometheus’day-to-day operations. He notes, howev-er, that bringing Serology 7 to marketwas a transformational experience, onethat has helped define his currentresearch interests.

“Prometheus was my first major link toclinical translation,” he says. “Because ofwhat I learned from that — understandingthe whole pipeline that goes from a verybasic finding, all the way to somethingthat is used clinically, in addition to under-standing the business issues that determinewhether or not something makes it there— it has really affected the choices I’vemade about my areas of research. Youneed to make it possible for companies tofind financial value in what you’re doingand bring it out into the community.There’s a real excitement and real gratifi-cation in seeing research that actuallyaffects the community directly.” �

B ra i n Watch

Mark Cohen, Ph.D.


of federally funded research trying to solvethis problem, and the solution required acomplete rethinking of the standard EEGhardware, from the electrodes themselves allthe way to the display screens.

The new technology, Cohen believes, willbe particularly useful in clinical settings.Patients with severe cases of epilepsy, forexample, often undergo brain surgery thatremoves the part of the brain that is believedto be causing the patients’ seizures. One of themajor drawbacks to this approach, however,is the difficulty of determining exactly wherein the brain the problem lies. Cohen believeshis new technology addresses this concern.

“During the periods when people are nothaving seizures, most persons with epilepsyhave abnormal brain signals,” he says. “Sowe can pick up events in the brain which you,as a normal person, would be very unlikely tohave. By trying to associate the timing ofthese intermittent events with changes in theblood flow signal in the brain, we can have awindow into trying to identify brain regionsthat are candidates for resection.”

Cohen speculates that the technologycould also be used in the diagnosis and treat-ment of other central nervous system dis-eases, such as Parkinson’s disease, depressionand obsessive-compulsive disease. He alsobelieves that the method this invention usesto remove EEG artifacts in scanning couldhave very broad impacts in digital noisereduction in telecommunications, audio andvideo. He hopes to find additional partnersto license the technology in those domains.

The technology has been licensed to EGI,a company based in Eugene, Oregon, thathopes to market commercial applications inthe near future. Cohen currently serves as aprofessor in the departments of Neurology;Radiological Sciences; Psychiatry &Biobehavioral Sciences; and BiomedicalPhysics at UCLA’s David Geffen School ofMedicine. �

The human brain is one of the most com-plex and remarkable objects known to man.And when it is healthy, it is capable of per-forming feats that still leave medicalresearchers scratching their heads in amaze-ment. Unfortunately, when problems arise,this very complexity leaves researchers andclinicians equally baffled. Functional MRI,a new technology that actually shows whichparts of the brain are engaged when peopleperform cognitive or behavioral tasks, ismaking it possible for us to unravel many ofthe brain’s secrets. But as researcher MarkCohen, Ph.D., notes, useful as it is, this tech-nology has several limitations.

“What it does is follow blood flow changesin the brain, and those changes can take sevento 10 seconds to appear,” explains the UCLAbrain mapping specialist. This time lag makesit difficult to determine exactly when events inthe brain occur. A much older technology, theEEG, skirts this problem because it recordselectrical impulses, which can be seen as theyoccur. But, as Cohen notes, the EEG relies onelectrodes that are attached to the scalp. It cantell a physician or researcher what is happen-ing in the brain, but not where.

The ideal solution, then, would be to usefunctional MRI and EEGs in tandem — asolution, unfortunately, that comes with itsown set of problems.

“There are two sets of problems in com-bining EEG and MRI,” Cohen explains.“One set of problems is how the EEG equip-ment interacts with the MRI and causestrouble in the images. That has to do withthe introduction of electrical conductorsinside the MRI device. And there is also asafety issue. The MRI device uses a relative-ly high power radio transmitter, and thatcan be coupled to the head through thephysical electrodes. So in rare cases, peoplehave suffered skin lesions when EEGs havebeen done in combination with MRIs.”

Cohen and his colleagues spent a decade

“By trying to associatethe timing of theseintermittent events withchanges in the bloodflow signal in the brain,we can have a windowinto trying to identifybrain regions that arecandidates for resection.”

EGI

athena

Taking the Uncertaintyout of Epilepsy


Antonio Delgado-Escueta, M.D.

the National Institutes of Health — andhis colleagues isolated a single mutatedgene that is associated with the onset ofJME. When this gene is detected througha simple blood test, it is possible to makea definitive diagnosis of JME and elimi-nate the possibility that the patient is suf-fering from another variant of the disease.

“It’s very important that you knowexactly what you’re dealing with,” saysDelgado-Escueta. “If you can separate itfrom the fatal forms of epilepsy, that meansa lot to the families, especially when youcan reassure them that the prognosis is goodbecause you can control the seizures.”

UCLA’s Office of Intellectual Property(OIP) has entered into an agreement withthe three foreign co-owners, so that it canbe the leading party in licensing the tech-nology to Worcester, Massachusetts-based Athena Diagnostics. Athena spe-cializes in the development and commer-cialization of diagnostic testing for neuro-logical disorders.

Delgado-Escueta is happy to let OIP andAthena handle the details of commercializ-ing his test. His focus, he says, is on find-ing cures for epilepsy, and that quest com-mands his full attention. Working with hisstudents, he has already identified threegenes that are associated with variousepileptic conditions. But while isolating thegenes is important, his real challenge isdefining the mechanism of action by whichthe mutated genes cause JME. Once thismechanism is understood, he believes itmight well be possible to find a cure.

With more than 2 million Americanssuffering from epileptic conditions,Delgado-Escueta believes this is the best useof his time. �

Although it can take many forms, one ofthe most familiar types of epilepsy is thecondition known as juvenile myoclonicepilepsy, or JME. This condition usuallymanifests itself in adolescence, and it iscommonly associated with the dramatic“grand mal” seizures that typically afflictits victims.

Antonio Delgado-Escueta has spent thelast two decades of his life studyingepilepsy, and he has seen the devastatingeffects of JME firsthand. “Grand malepilepsy is the most horrible form ofseizure to witness,” he says. “Patients falland lose consciousness, and get stiff andconvulse, and the eyes roll up. It scaresthe hell out of parents.”

Fortunately for the victims and theirfamilies, JME is usually non-fatal. Andwhen diagnosed early and accurately, itdoes respond to treatment. Making anaccurate diagnosis is not easy, however.Twenty different forms of epilepsy havebeen identified thus far, and when the dis-ease starts manifesting itself in adolescentpatients, it is virtually indistinguishablefrom other debilitating forms, as well asfatal forms, of epilepsy.

Delgado-Escueta, who serves as profes-sor-in-residence and attending neurologistat UCLA’s David Geffen School ofMedicine, has developed a tool that great-ly simplifies the process of diagnosingJME. The technology is an outgrowth ofDelgado-Escueta’s ongoing search for acure for JME, which he has been conduct-ing in collaboration with research organi-zations in Honduras, Mexico and Japan.In the course of their research on thegenetic basis for the disease, Delgado-Escueta — whose own work is funded by

Caius Radu, M.D., and Owen Witte, M.D.

“You face roadblocks,

and one of those roadblocks,

which is very significant, is the

fact that the immune

system is so complex, we

cannot model it outside of the

body. You have to see it

at work in a living organism.”

P E T S h o p B o y s


As remarkable as the human immune system is, it doesn’t always work as well as one mighthope it would. Cancer and infectious diseases can overwhelm it. And in some cases, the immunesystem itself goes rogue, attacking the very body it is supposed to protect.

UCLA researchers Owen Witte and Caius Radu share an interest in the immune systemthat stretches back across the arc of the two men’s careers. “Years and years ago, when I wasa medical student, I had worked on and developed an interest in cancer immunotherapy,”recalls Witte, who serves as a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at UCLA’sDavid Geffen School of Medicine. “I wanted to see how we could use the immune system totreat cancer.”

Radu, who once worked as a fellow in Witte’s lab and describes the older scientist as hismentor, notes that being interested in the immune system is one thing; understanding howit functions is quite another matter. “You face roadblocks,” he explains. “And one of thoseroadblocks, which is very significant, is the fact that the immune system is so complex, wecannot model it outside of the body. You have to see it at work in a living organism.”

The key to breaking through this roadblock turned out to be Positron EmissionTomography (PET), an imaging technology developed by UCLA’s own Dr. Michael Phelps.

Using PET, it is possible for physicians and medical researchers to monitor biologicalprocesses as they happen. The challenge for Witte, Radu and their colleagues was to find amethod that would allow the PET scanner to focus on activities within an organism’s immunesystem. By observing the immune system at work, they reasoned, it would be possible todetermine the effect of various drugs on immune system function.

The key to making the secrets of the immune system visible to PET scanners was thedevelopment of molecular probes that would target the immune system after having beeninjected into the bloodstream. Since these probes are labeled with radioisotopes, it is possi-ble for PET scanners to detect them and show what is happening in the immune system.

“The radioisotope decays by emitting positrons, which are electrons with a positivecharge,” Radu explains. “It’s like antimatter. Positrons encounter electrons in surroundingtissues where these probes accumulate. Then you have matter interacting with antimatter,and when that happens both particles are completely annihilated. Their mass is convertedinto energy, and this can be detected by special detectors.”

“The idea is that it is an enabling technology,” Witte elaborates. “It helps make a diagno-sis, and it helps as well to evaluate the response to therapy. With this technology we shouldbe able to see where immune cells are. Are they in the right places? Are they moving to theright places? And we should be able to quantify the numbers of cells, which might change upor down, depending on the therapeutic intent. For example, in cancer you might want toamplify the immune system, but in an autoimmune disease you might want to inhibit it.”

Believing strongly in the promise of this technology, Witte and Radu — along with Drs.Phelps, Johannes Czernin, Nagichettiar Satyamurthy and several other colleagues — haveformed the company Sofie Biosciences. Currently headquartered in the MomentumBiosciences business incubator (see page 2), Sofie has licensed the probe technology from theUCLA Office of Intellectual Property and is hoping to develop commercial applications thatit can bring to market — a process that is no less daunting than the technical challenges thegroup has had to overcome.

“We have a company,” says Witte. “But that part’s easy. Making it a successful companyis where we need to go next.” �

My Antibody, MyselfWith recent advances in micro- and nanotechnology, medical researchers are increasinglyturning their attention to the cell itself as the key to treating and curing a host of diseases.By manipulating our very genes and the proteins they regulate, researchers believe they mightwell be able to restore health to patients suffering from diseases ranging from Parkinson’sand Alzheimer’s to lupus and arthritis to various forms of cancer.

Most of the current research in this area focuses on a technique known as gene therapy. Inpractice, this involves introducing new or altered genes into the nucleus of the target cell. Thesegenes, in turn, are delivered to the nucleus by means of cell-specific viruses.

Unfortunately, as promising as this line of research is, altering biological processes at thecellular level brings risks of its own.

“When a virus is delivered into a cell, the virus integrates into the DNA and remains thereforever,” says Richard Weisbart, professor emeritus at the UCLA David Geffen School ofMedicine. “A virus can integrate into a wrong place, resulting in potential problems, includingthe development of leukemia and cancer. Some day these problems will be solved, but in themeantime, alternative therapies are needed. Antibody-mediated intracellular delivery of pro-teins is one possibility.”

Weisbart — whose own work is funded by federal grants — believes, however, that he hasdiscovered a safer alternative to gene therapy. A rheumatologist by trade, Weisbart has spentmost of his career studying autoimmune diseases and the antibodies associated with them.Some 14 years ago, he and his colleagues Robert Nishimura and Grace Chan first observed anautoantibody in patients suffering from lupus. This autoantibody, they discovered, has theunique ability to penetrate living cells and enter the cells’ nuclei without causing harm.

Intrigued by their discovery, the researchers embarked on a series of experiments in whichthey mutated these autoantibodies one amino acid at a time.

“And when we did that,” recalls Weisbart, “we ended up with an antibody that could pen-etrate into living cells 50 times better than the native antibody. And, remarkably, it didn’t causeany harm to cells. So it occurred to me when we were doing this work 14 years ago that thisantibody could be developed into a therapeutic intracellular- and intranuclear-delivery system.”

Using such an autoantibody to deliver therapeutic proteins to the nucleus, Weisbart explains,is potentially far safer than gene therapy, because it not only eliminates the introduction of newgenes into the target DNA, it eliminates the viruses that are now used to deliver them.

“Once the cell-penetrating antibody delivers its payload into the cell, the cell destroys theantibody within a period of time,” says Weisbart, “so there’s nothing left over to be harmful.”

Now retired from UCLA and conducting his research largely as a labor of love, Weisbartexplains that this technology appeals to him because of his career-long interest in findingtherapies that minimize the side effects and create a minimal amount of discomfort and dis-ruption in his patients’ lives.

Weisbart believes that this technology could be commercialized soon and acknowledgesthat at least one company has discussed the possibility of licensing his discovery from UCLA.“It takes a company to develop products for commercial use. However, my interest is in work-ing fulltime in my laboratory to continue perfecting this technology so that it can be appliedto the treatment of many different human diseases. This is a platform technology that hasmany potential applications, so there is a great deal of work that still needs to be done.” �

Richard Weisbart, M.D.Grace Chan, M.D., and Robert Nishimura, M.D.

“Once the cell-penetrating

antibody delivers

its payload into the cell,

the cell destroys the

antibody within a period

of time, so there’s

nothing left over to

be harmful.”


A f t e r t h e F l o o dIn the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the residents of New Orleans wereconfronted with a series of difficult and potentially painful decisions. The most con-tentious of all, perhaps, was the question of whether or not it was even worthrebuilding a city that is inherently prone to natural disasters of this nature.

Thom Mayne, though himself a resident of Southern California, was faced witha similar decision.

“Right after Katrina, we were asked by the Netherlands Architectural Institute todo a project,” recalls Mayne, who is a professor in the Department of Architectureand Urban Design and the founder and design director at Morphosis, an interdisci-plinary and collective practice involved in experimental design and research. “Theywanted a symbolic, iconic building to initiate the rebuilding of New Orleans.”

Despite the prestigious nature of the commission, Mayne and his associatesbelieved that an iconic building was inappropriate. According to their assessment,what New Orleans really needed was an urban plan that would relocate andrestore wetlands to the 32 square miles of Crescent City property that is at riskwhen storms as violent as Katrina hit the Louisiana coast. The two conceptsappeared to be irreconcilable, and Mayne’sinvolvement in the rebuilding of New Orleansmight have ended there. But then Brad Pitt andhis Make It Right Foundation approached thearchitect. Pitt wanted to know if Morphosiswould be interested in designing a prototypefor a low-income house that could be built inthe largely devastated Lower Ninth Ward.

“We thought, ‘Uh-oh, it doesn’t seem like wecan do this, because we’re basically violatingour own recommendation’,” Mayne recalls. “But we sat on it for two or three weeks,and we came up with another idea. Maybe there’s a middle ground. What if we devel-op a residence that deals with the reality of the flooding but represents a more ruralkind of lifestyle? It wouldn’t mean reurbanizing this area, but some people wouldremain, and they’d be living in an estuary restored to its natural condition.”

After agreeing to take on the project, Mayne decided that instead of running itexclusively through Morphosis, he would open the problem to students in UCLA’sDepartment of Architecture and Urban Design. The department offered the course,and seven graduate students took up the challenge. Working with Mayne, they setabout designing a new kind of house — a house that could sustain its own waterand power needs, a house that could survive the floodwaters generated by a stormthe size of Hurricane Katrina and, perhaps most importantly, a house that could bemanufactured cheaply enough to function as low-income housing.

“We came up with this idea of building a chassis,” explains Mayne. “It comeswith everything — kitchen, bathroom, everything is attached to the chassis. You justhave to put a body on it and you’re done.”

After they deliver the prototype to New Orleans,Mayne hopes that he and his students will be able tointerest some appropriate public agency or commercialenterprise in helping to mass-produce their design ideas.

For Mayne, though, the real payoff has been thelearning experience the project has given his students.From studying the site in New Orleans, through thedesign and building process, all the way through tofiguring out how to ship the 8,000-pound concretechassis and the prefabricated house panels from LosAngeles to New Orleans, the students have beeninvolved at every step along the way.

“My assessment is that we’ve done some thingsthat are quite interesting,” says Mayne. “And sinceit’s real, the students are involved at a completely dif-ferent level.” �

“Right after Katrina, we were asked by theNetherlands Architectural Institute to do a project.They wanted a symbolic, iconic building to initiatethe rebuilding of New Orleans.”


Thom Mayne and his graduate students, (top left to right)Ryan Whitacre, Ian Ream, Erin Smith, Monica Ream, and Saji Matuk.(not pictured) Linda Fu and Jeanne Legier Stahl.

Robert LeMoyne, doctoral candidate

rSpirit of InventionRobert LeMoyne is more than a promis-ing UCLA doctoral candidate. He is alsoa prolific inventor. So prolific, in fact, thatat this stage of his career he has a hardtime remembering just how many inven-tion disclosures for patents he currentlyholds. As of the summer of 2009, howev-er, LeMoyne could confirm that he had30 invention disclosures to his credit.

That LeMoyne is alive at all, let aloneapplying for invention disclosures forpatents at such a prodigious clip, is some-thing of a miracle. At the age of 12, whileplaying football with a youth group nearhis hometown of Livonia, Michigan, hewas struck on the side of his head. Theinjury went untreated for six to sevenhours, and in the aftermath — eventhough LeMoyne survived the internalhemorrhaging — it was widely assumedthat the brain damage would be both cat-astrophic and irreversible.

Fortunately, that grim prognosis waswrong. LeMoyne awoke from a coma-tose state, mute and quadriplegic, but hemiraculously emerged with his mentalfaculties intact. LeMoyne went on toearn master’s degrees in both aerospaceand mechanical engineering from theUniversity of Michigan, while graduatingsumma cum laude. He took a job withBoeing’s Rocketdyne division in the SanFernando Valley.

After working in the aerospace indus-try for several years, LeMoyne decidedto leave Boeing in the early 2000s andstrike out in a new direction. He is cur-rently wrapping up the research, fundedin part by federal money. The work willearn him a Ph.D. in neural engineering asubfield of biomedical engineering. The

focus of his work is reflex quantificationsystems, an area of research that hasmeaning for him personally.

“I remember once going through aneurological battery examination,”explains the 35-year-old inventor. “Andthere were two young residents evaluat-ing me. I saw that the nature of quantify-ing reflexes was highly qualitative innature. So I’m trying to make it moreprecise, quantifying it with objectiveaccelerometers.”

Even as he works on his doctoraldegree, LeMoyne has somehow foundtime to file disclosures for inventions infields as diverse as aerospace, biomedi-cine and mechanical engineering. Therange of his interests is almost dizzying.

“I have applications for patents forwater purification and applications foradvanced propulsion systems,” he says.“But my favorite is for virtual proprio-ception. It’s like a breakthrough conceptfor biofeedback in gait and step detec-tion. It could be very useful for soldierscoming back from Iraq with prostheticsor brain injuries like myself. People withbrain injuries and prosthetics have dis-parate perception of the motion of theaffected limb. So I’m using accelerome-ters to provide biofeedback.”

When he wraps up work on his doc-torate, LeMoyne hopes to make a careerin either academia or private industry.The determining factor, he says, will bethe degree of intellectual freedom that isaccorded him.

“I want to do something where I cangrow and innovate,” he explains. Andgiven the range of his interests and achieve-ments, one can easily understand why. �

“I have applications

for patents for water

purification and

applications for advanced

propulsion systems, but

my favorite is for virtual

proprioception. It’s like

a breakthrough concept

for biofeedback in gait

and step detection.”

Spirit of InventionSpirit of InventionSpirit of Invention


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1 Medical coil device for aneurysm treatment

2 Biodegradable medical coil device for aneurysm treatment

3 Nicotine patch — smoking cessation

4 Diagnostic test for gastrointenstinal diseases (Crohn’s and IBD)

5 Connective tissue stem cell

6 Embolism Retrieval Device

7 Treatment and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease

8 Human monoclonal antibody targeting prostate stem cell antigen

9 Human monoclonal antibodies therapeutically effective

against cancer

10 Granulocyte colony stimulating factor used for the treatment

of neutropenia

IP PROTECTION, TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERAND RESEARCH ACTIVITIES FOR FY2008

1,560

535

537

227

REVENUE-PRODUCINGTECHNOLOGIES FOR FY2008

Gross sales from UCLA licensesInvention disclosuresNew U.S. patent filingsSecondary filingsIssued U.S. patentsFirst foreign filingsLicense and option agreementsAmendments with new IP matterConfidentiality agreementsLetter agreementsInter-institutional agreementsMaterial transfer agreement (case related)Material transfer agreement (non-case related)

$156,146,062

314

142

112

42

73

38

10

171

49

14

37

980OIP OVERVIEWTOTAL INVENTION PORTFOLIO

TOTAL ACTIVE U.S. PATENTS

TOTAL ACTIVE FOREIGN PATENTS

TOTAL ACTIVE LICENSE AGREEMENTS

“Many of my most valued colleagues have been graduate studentsand post-doctoral fellows with educated imaginations, fresh perspectivesand questions no one had ever thought to ask. "

— Dr. Paul Boyer1997 Nobel Prize for Chemistry


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