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Bio Innovations Speaker Series

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Wednesday, April 17, 2024
4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. CST 

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Bridging Scientific Discovery & Commercial Innovation - Why Protecting Your Idea is Important

Rosalind Franklin University Moderator

Connie M. Cleary, DPM Director, Innovation and Industry Partnerships

Schedule

  • 4:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. - Networking
  • 5:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. - Overview of the Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR)
    Noah Rosenblatt PhD, Associate Professor & Associate Dean of Research , CLEAR
  • 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. - Bridging Scientific Discovery & Commercial Innovation- Why Protecting Your Idea is Important

Industry Panelists

Emily Miao, PhD, JD, Partner
McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

 

J. Peter Paredes, JD, Partner
Amin, Talati, Wasserman

 

Joe Whalen SVP
Alliances & Business Development, Amgen

 

RFU Panelists

Noah Rosenblatt PhD
Associate Professor & Associate Dean of Research , CLEAR

 

Holly Hunsberger, PhD
Assistant Professor , Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and Therapeutics

 

Industry Panelists Bios

Emily Miao, PhD, JD, Partner,  McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP

Emily Miao is Chair of MBHB’s Startups and Entrepreneurs Practice Group. With over 20 years of experience in all aspects of intellectual property practice, clients seek her counsel on a wide variety of intellectual property matters.

Dr. Miao specializes in helping entrepreneurs, universities, startups and early-stage companies protect innovations and build patent portfolios that generate long-term value. Dr. Miao has helped several clients build their portfolios from a single patent to global portfolios.

J. Peter Paredes, Partner, Amin, Talati, Wasserman

J. Peter Paredes works diligently with innovative executives, inventors and companies of all sizes to develop and protect their valuable assets: in their patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret portfolios. Peter represents clients in the medical device, pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, food, biotechnology, life science, and other industries in the chemical, software, and mechanical arts.

An accomplished patent prosecutor, Peter brings broad experience and skills to his patent and trade secret law practice. As Co-Chair of the firm’s Intellectual Property practice group, Peter actively manages international patent and trade secret portfolios and works directly with clients to accomplish patent and trade secret strategies aligned with their business goals.

Peter’s understanding of IP strategy, licensing, and fundraising adds an extra dimension to counseling clients on IP procurement and execution. He identifies potential licensing opportunities and crafts strategies to avoid exposure to potential blocking patents. Peter frequently provides opinions on freedom to operate, patentability, competitive landscape analysis, due diligence, and other complex strategic IP issues.

Peter monitors competitive portfolios to remain aware of potential threats to clients’ business development plans, products, and IP portfolios. He is proactive in devising licensing, avoidance and enforcement strategies in response to potential threats. Peter assists clients by negotiating and drafting license agreements, technology transfer agreements, merger and acquisition agreements, confidentiality and consulting agreements and clinical trial agreements.

Joe Whalen, SVP, Alliances & Business Development, Amgen

Joe has almost 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry leading and supporting transactions involving, licensing, acquisitions, and divestitures.  He was among the first twenty employees at Horizon when he joined in 2010 and led or supported many of Horizon’s acquisitions, growing the business to over $3.6 billion in net sales before it was acquired by Amgen for $28 billion in late 2023.  Joe is currently assisting the integration of Horizon into Amgen.  Prior to Horizon/Amgen he worked at Baxter Healthcare and Searle Pharmaceuticals.  Joe is a proud member of the Rosalind Franklin Industry Advisory Board and looks forward to one day receiving an honorary degree from Rosalind. 

Rosalind Franklin University Panelists Bios

Noah Rosenblatt PhD, Associate Professor & Associate Dean of Research, CLEAR

Dr. Rosenblatt is an Associate Professor in the Department of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery and an Associate dean of Research for the Dr. William M. Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine, where his primary efforts include his research responsibilities within the Center for Lower Extremity Ambulatory Research (CLEAR). Dr. Rosenblatt’s research seeks to prevent falls by at-risk individuals and the negative sequelae thereafter, including injury and mortality. His work targets both healthy community-dwelling older adults and persons with commodities including obesity, diabetes, and lower limb loss. He uses biomechanical tools and models to quantify measures associated with the increased likelihood of balance loss due to aging or disease state, including measures of locomotor stability and intersegmental coordination, and to quantify insufficiencies in whole-body, reactive balance responses pursuant to a loss of balance. The overreaching goal of the work is to identify modifiable biomechanical markers associated with falls and to integrate this information into the development of novel, patient-specific, interventions to promote mobility and reduce falls. His work in the area of falls by lower limb users has led to a broader interest in developing novel tools to assess falls in this population and in conducting clinical trials aimed at improving mobility and health outcomes from this cohort, with a focus on the socket interface. A related emerging interest is on the role of fear of falling on neuromechanics of reactive balance and on developing interventions to address fear of falling in users of lower limb prostheses as a means of promoting community participation. Dr. Rosenblatt’s commitment to applying his strong biomechanics background to address mobility and fall-related issues for a wide variety populations is evidence by his currently funded projects, which seek to:

  1. better understand how offloading footwear for the treatment of diabetic foot ulcers impacts locomotor stability and its relationship to adherence and ulcer healing; and
  2. the extent to which prosthetic socket design interferes with hip muscle function in transfemoral amputees and the relationship to impaired mediolateral reactive balance;
  3. the extent to which prosthesis users with diabetes are susceptible to fatigue during walking and the relationship to community-based falls due to self-reported activity-induced fatigue.

Holly Hunsberger, PhD, Assistant Professor, Center for Neurodegenerative Disease and Therapeutics.

Dr. Hunsberger received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from West Virginia University. She then went on to pursue her PhD under the mentorship of Dr. Miranda Reed at West Virginia University. There she studied glutamate’s role in Alzheimer’s disease using novel microelectrode array technology. After receiving her PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience, she moved to New York City for her postdoctoral position under the mentorship of Dr. Christine Denny at Columbia University. There her work focused on how the metabolome differs between age-related cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s and how anxiety impacts Alzheimer’s progression. During that time, she also became interested in sex differences throughout aging and AD and with an NIH K99/R00 career transition award started her own independent laboratory here at RFU. 

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