Welcome to the winter edition of the Brandeis Office of Technology Licensing newsletter. Here, you'll find our newest inventions available for licensing, profiles of our researchers, industry events we will be attending, and news about the commercialization of our recent discoveries.
We hope you enjoy reading this. As always, you can reach out to our team with specific inquiries.
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Featured Technology
OptMark - A Profiling and Quality Assessment Tool for Query Optimizers
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A toolkit that quantifies the quality of a query optimizer, independently of any other component of the database management system
Query optimizers are one of the most complex components of a database management system. They are responsible for discovering the most efficient way to process a user's query. Existing performance assessment approaches for database engines produce a performance assessment of the query run-time system rather than its optimizer. Currently there are no tools for evaluating their quality. To address this challenge, researchers at Brandies University have introduced OptMark, a system for profiling and evaluating the quality of a query optimizer.
OptMark is a toolkit that quantifies the quality of a query optimizer, independently of any other component of the database management system. ( Brandeis Reference Number 1346 )
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Profile in Innovation
Olga Papaemmanouil: Revolutionizing Data Science
Making databases work to solve big problems has always been important to Olga Papaemmanouil. From her early career in finance to her current role as a Brandeis innovator, Olga has had an ambitious goal: to make data management systems a user-friendly tool for solving Big Data problems.
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Today, the Brandeis computer science professor is working on an impressive array of Big Data Analytics solutions, with a common goal of simplifying the usage, development and tuning of big data-centric applications.
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Recently Issued Patents and PCT Filings
We were recently issued US patents in therapeutics, genetics, food science, and materials science. Please contact us if you are interested in licensing any of these technologies!
Inventor: John Lisman
The use of DBH inhibitors (e.g., disulfiram and Nepicastat) have proven effective for treating subjects with certain types of memory loss, for instance memory loss associated with a neurodegenerative disease, disorder, or condition, such as Alzheimer's Disease.
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Inventor: Christopher J Doona
This invention relates to the field of predictive modeling to ensure the microbiological safety and extended shelf life of foods; additionally, to a quasi-chemical mathematical modeling method which is used as a tool for predictive microbiology evaluation of microorganism population dynamics based on an understanding of chemical reaction pathways that are intrinsic to these organisms in support of the safe design of food product formulation and food processing conditions.
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Inventor: Isaac Krauss
This new method of vaccine development focuses on directed evolution of a large library of carbohydrate-oligonucleotide conjugates, and then a therapeutically-useful monoclonal antibody is used to bind those members of the library which best resemble its native epitope. Through amplification or diversification of the best binders from the first library, the best epitope mimics are selected from subsequent library generations to provide improved binders. The carbohydrate-oligonucleotide conjugates obtained from the process present carbohydrates in an environment similar to that of the natural epitope. Such a compound, when formulated with the appropriate immunogenic carrier and adjuvant, would constitute a vaccine.
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Inventors: Seth Fraden, Michael Heymann, Markus Ludwig
Our PhaseChip allows high-throughput screening for optimal crystallization parameters and significantly reduces the required amount of sample protein. In addition, it allows versatile manipulation of the crystallization kinetics, which is the key to grow defect free crystals that yield high-resolution structures. Furthermore, in current practice, crystals are manually harvested, cryo-protected and frozen to -196 degree Celsius to reduce radiation damage prior to X-ray experiments. Using our X-ray transparent Chip, we diffract in-situ, avoiding handling and cryo-protection of the crystals entirely. This reduces labor and improves crystal quality.
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Inventors: Ruibao Ren, Xianming Deng, Ping Liu, Bo Jiao, Wei Huang
Protein kinases represent a large family of proteins which play a central role in the regulation of a wide variety of cellular processes and maintaining control over cellular function. Kinases are implicated in numerous cancers and therefore have been attractive therapeutic targets. This invention is a novel way of making and deploying kinase inhibitors to treat cancers with lower risk of drug resistance.
Brandeis reference No. 1156
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Inventors: Jeremy Agresti, Hakim Boukellal, Seth Fraden, Yanwei Jia, Amy Rowat, Seila Selimovic, David A Weitz
Microfluidic systems used in electron microscopy typically involve control of fluid flow through one or more microchannels. One class of systems includes microfluidic “chips” that include very small fluid channels and small reaction/analysis chambers. These systems can be used for analyzing very small amounts of samples and reagents and can control liquid and gas samples on a small scale. Microfluidic chips have found use in both research and production, and are currently used for applications such as genetic analysis, chemical diagnostics, drug screening, and environmental monitoring. Although these systems may allow manipulation of small volumes of fluids, additional methods that allow further control and flexibility are needed. This invention provides these needed methods, potentially revolutionizing electron microscopy.
Brandeis reference No . 20070304
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Inventors: Yi Kuang, Bing Xu
The invention available for licensing is a library of hydrophobic, self-assembling small molecules which specifically target cancer cells and inhibit tumor growth. The diversity of small molecular fibril aggregates offers abundant opportunity for generating other functional entities. Furthermore, the inhibitory effect on tumor growth has been tested on nude mice with xenograft tumors by injection. The molecular aggregates significantly inhibited tumor growth over 20 folds comparing to the control during 20 days without inducing inflammation response in skin tissue or any other side effects. The findings illustrate the power of these novel anticancer agents, and potentially benefit the therapeutic research for both cancer and neurodegenerative diseases.
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Inventors: Cristina Hartshorn, John Rice, Arthur Reis, Lawrence Wangh, Kenneth Pierce, J. Aquiles Sanchez, Stephen D Van Hooser, Skye Fishbein
Two different families of reagents that improve primer specificity when added to a PCR amplification have been described by the laboratory of Lawrence Wangh. Improving PCR testing accuracy has wide implications in genetics research, other biomedical research, and diagnostics. This invention has already been licensed.
Brandeis reference No. 1122
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Inventor: Dan Perlman
This innovative neck design effectively solves the problem of wine dripping without compromising the strength or internal architecture of conventional commercial glass bottles. The design introduces a novel 1-2mm wide liquid flow guide below the bottle's lip edge that effectively holds onto the last wine droplet as the pouring stream ends. Although we describe the improved architecture for wine bottles, our technology can also be applied to other glass storage bottles for which drip-free pouring of valuable liquids is desirable.
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Inventors: Bing Xu
This discovery of enzyme instructed assembly of tyrosine cholesterol conjugate presents new applications of amino acid cholesterol conjugate such as controlling cancer cell death, inhibiting drug resistance cancer cell, immune therapy and drug delivery.
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Inventor: Hermann Wellenstein
Sclervey uses six LED arrays arranged on a block positioned with the eye at the center of projection in order to obtain a uniform grid of 163 light spots on the surface of the eye. Six CCD cameras (plus one in the center) mounted inside a plastic spherical shell view the dot projection such that each dot is visible to two or more cameras, and stereo geometry reduces two imaged into a 3D surface. Currently, the fitting process for prosthetic scleral lenses is done by trial and error, requiring multiple sessions and trial lenses.
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Inventors: Lawrence J. Wangh
Identifying strains of mycobacteria is vital to effective treatment of diseases caused by these infectious agents, including tuberculosis. Effective identification of resistant strains, in particular, is important to prevention of further treatment resistance. In this invention, nucleic acid amplification and fluorescence detection methods are provided for the detection and differentiation of mycobacteria based on, for example, pathogenicity, species, and antibiotic resistance or sensitivity. Compositions and methods are provided herein to identify and differentiate mycobacteria in mixtures of different mycobacteria and mycobacteria and non-mycobacteria.
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Search All Our Available Technologies
Brandeis University offers a growing array of technologies available for licensing in the areas of therapeutics and diagnostics, food science and safety, research materials, and drug delivery. We also have offerings in artificial intelligence, data science, and agriculture. You can search our full database of currently-available technologies below. Please contact us for further information on any of the listed technologies.
News About Innovation at Brandeis
The fifth annual Brandeis Innovation Showcase was one for the record books in more ways than one. It a milestone anniversary in the history of the Brandeis Innovation Center, celebrating five years of diverse innovations across the University. Once focused on bench research only with the SPROUT program, Brandeis Innovation has expanded its programs to include the full gamut of entrepreneurial ventures. Together, the SPROUT, SPARK, and I-Corps programs provide opportunities to all Brandeis innovators across all schools, including undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff. It is a comprehensive program supporting entrepreneurship, yet maintains the close-knit, collaborative spirit for which Brandeis is known.
Professor of biology and biology department chair Piali Sengupta has been selected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science ( AAAS ). The Association said in a letter to Sengupta that she was selected for her “distinguished contributions to the field of sensory neuroscience, particularly for defining the molecular genetics of chemical communication and thermosensation in C. elegans .”
Sengupta’s research focuses on understanding how animals sense environmental cues such as chemicals and temperature and how this information is then translated into changes in development and behavior. Identifying the genes, neurons and circuits that underlie sensory transduction provides information about how organisms, including humans, interact with their environment and how defects in the ability to process sensory signals lead to neurological and behavioral disorders.
Traci Green was appointed to join the faculty as professor and director of the Opiod Policy Research Collaborative (OPRC) on Jan. 1, 2020. Green joins Brandeis from Boston University, where she was previously an associate professor of emergency medicine and deputy director of the Boston Medical Center Injury Prevention Center. Green has over 17 years of experience as a faculty member and epidemiologist focusing on the areas of drug use, addiction and overdose prevention; she also served the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Guideline on Prescription Opiods for Chronic Pain workgroup and the National Academies of Sciences committee studies on opiods.
Come Meet Us!
At Brandeis Innovation, we provide innovators and aspiring change-makers with as many opportunities as possible. Come and join us at these upcoming events:
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01/21/2020, Mandel Center for the Humanities
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Mass Innovation Nights: Brandeis Edition on Pi Day
03/11/2020, Waltham, MA
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