Standing Innovation 2024

On October 30, UF Innovate | Tech Licensing hosted its annual event to recognize top innovations stemming from the University of Florida. Standing InnOvation, the best kind of “standing ovation” you can give innovators, recognized the six inventions of the year and the Innovator of the Year, Dr. Elias Sayour, a researcher developing unique cancer therapies.

Jim O’Connell, assistant vice president of commercialization at UF and director of UF Innovate | Tech Licensing, emceed the event highlighting the Inventions of the Year chosen by the licensing teams, each invention standing out as one with great potential.

The inventions selected this year range from an approach to treating brain disorders with a fungal drug delivery platform to the development of a series of robots that can build any construction component. These innovations look to the future, pushing the limits and revolutionizing their respective fields.

Learn more about our innovator of the year and the inventions showcased at the event in the videos below. You can read all about our winners and relive the celebration, here.

We are incredibly thankful to Wolf Greenfield Intellectual Property Attorneys for sponsoring the event for 7th consecutive year. We are delighted to welcome back law firms Alston & Bird and Thomas | Horstemeyer as returning sponsors. This year, we are also excited to partner with new sponsors: Audi Gainesville, Villavences Law, and Santa Fe College CIED, which kindly provided the venue. Additionally, we appreciate Kookaburra Coffee as our coffee and bakery sponsor.

We’ve gotten so many kudos for the event’s quality, and we credit our sponsor’s generosity that allowed us to do Standing InnOvation right once again.

Photo Gallery

Videos

Innovator of the Year - Elias Sayour

The 2024 Innovator of the Year is Elias Sayour, MD, Ph.D., recognizing his groundbreaking and pioneering work. Dr Sayour’s development of unique mRNA vaccines could be the key to a universal cancer vaccine treatment. When selecting an Innovator of the Year, UF Innovate considers a researcher’s body of work and selects one who has made significant scientific contributions that have been licensed and taken to the marketplace, sometimes by the researcher launching a startup based on the discoveries.

Inventions of the year

This compilation video highlights the six inventions selected for an Invention of the Year. These were selected from the 372 newly disclosed technologies in fiscal year 2024 that stood out as having great potential. The inventions range from an approach to treating brain disorders with a fungal drug delivery platform to the development of a series of robots that can build any construction component.

Invention of the Year - Jamal Lewis and Clinton Smith

Dr. Jamal Lewis, an associate professor of biomedical engineering, and his research team, including graduate student Clinton Smith, are leading a project that could transform how we treat brain disorders. These conditions affect a large portion of the US population, but existing drugs often fail due to delivery challenges.

Invention of the Year - Fan Ren and Josephine Esquivel-Upshaw

Dr. Fan ren and Dr. Josephine Esquivel-Upshaw have collaborated to advance their biosensor technology, which has evolved from using basic glucose strips to detecting multiple biomarkers simultaneously with an approach that “enhances sensitivity by 100 to 1000 times,” Esquivel-Upshaw said.

Invention of the Year - Aladdin Alwisy and Ben Tehrani

This 2024 Invention of the Year recognizes Dr. Aladdin Alwisy, Ben Tehrani, and their team for developing a series of robots that can build any construction component as part of their commitment to the growing construction industry. This Invention of the Year links the design and transfers the manufacturing strategy to the robot, showing them how to build and design each component.

Invention of the Year - Prabhat Mishra and Daniel Volya

This Invention of the Year recognizes Dr. Prabhat Mishra and Dr. Daniel Volya for their groundbreaking work in quantum benchmarking, focusing on error correction codes and quantum circuit modeling. It includes understanding weaknesses and designing systems that effectively mitigate the associated risks. As cybersecurity threats become increasingly sophisticated, this work is crucial and emphasizes the growing need for protective measures.

Invention of the Year - Thomas Burris

Dr. Thomas Burris has developed an exercise memetic derived from a natural product source. These small molecule ligands target two receptor classes, ERRs and REVERBs, to facilitate many of the same physiological pathways involved in exercise metabolism. By mimicking the physiological adaptations our bodies experience when exercising, these naturally found molecules can be used simultaneously with existing drugs and improve health.

Invention of the Year - Jennifer Mulligan and Carl Atkinson

This 2024 Invention of the Year recognizes Dr. Jennifer Mulligan and Dr. Carl Atkinson for their work with RADA16, a groundbreaking hydrogel that holds promise in treating chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) and other inflammatory conditions. It broadens its potential to serve as an anti-inflammatory agent for treating anything in the mucosal lining.