UNM Rainforest Innovations

The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) recently issued sixteen U.S. patents to STC during the months of October, November, and December for technologies invented at the University of New Mexico. The patents, issued during STC’s 2019 fiscal 2nd quarter, are for a variety of technologies created by researchers in the Departments of Emergency Medicine, Computer Science, Neurosciences, Chemical & Biological Engineering, Chemistry, Electrical & Computer Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and the College of Pharmacy, Comprehensive Cancer Center, Center of High Technology Materials, and Center for Emerging Energy Technologies.

Issued Patent for “Infusion Device”
Patent No. 10,086,132, issued October 2, 2018
This technology is currently licensed.
Inventor:  Mark Hauswald

This technology is a mechanical, low cost, and disposable infusion pump device that meters a controlled amount of medication per unit of time for injecting medication into a patient’s IV.  The invention is especially useful for birthing, critical care or emergency patients, although it is not limited to any particular patient use.  It includes an IV reservoir, a syringe communicated to the IV reservoir, a syringe plunger connected to a filling plunger that is moved with the syringe plunger in a first syringe-filling direction to fill the syringe with fluid medication. The filling plunger has biasing weight(s) for exerting bias or force from gravity to dispense medication from the syringe into the patient’s IV. Only a calibrated amount of medicine can be discharged to the patient’s IV over time.

Issued Patent for “Online Review Assessment Using Multiple Sources
Patent No. 10,089,660, issued October 2, 2018
Inventors:  Shuang (Sean) Luan, Abdullah Mueen, Michalis Faloutsos, Amanda J. Minnich

This technology is a method for assessing multiple sources of reviews for the same product or service (e.g. hotels, restaurants, clinics, hair saloon, etc.) to provide a trustworthiness score. Such a score can clearly identify hotels with evidence of review manipulation, omission and fakery and provide the user with a comprehensive understanding of the reviews of a product or establishment. Three types of information are used in computing the score: spatial, temporal and network or graph-based. The information is blended to produce a representative set of features that can reliably produce the trustworthiness score. The invention is self-adapting to new reviews and sites, and includes a validation mechanism by crowd-sourcing and fake review generation to ensure reliability and trustworthiness of the scoring.

Issued Patent for “Synergistic Enhancement of 5-Fluorouracil Cytotoxicity by Deoxyuridine Analogs in Cancer Cells
Patent No. 10,086,010, issued October 2, 2018
Inventors:  Yoshihiro Matsumoto, Alan Edward Tomkinson, Hiroshi Ide

This technology is a method for treating patients who suffers from a neoplasm (benign or cancerous tumors) (including radiotherapeutic-resistant cancers) by administering a therapeutically effective amount of chemotherapy compounds 5-FU and hmUdR as follows: (a) 5-formyl-2′-deoxyuridine (fdU or foUdR) or a 5-formyl-2′-deoxyuridine derivative, optionally in combination with 5-hydroxy-2′-deoxyuridine (hUdR); and (b) at least one composition selected from the group consisting of either 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), a 5-FU prodrug (e.g. 5-fluoro-2′-deoxyuridine (FdU)) or 5-FU metabolite. For example, a patient who suffers from colorectal cancer (CRC) or metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) would be treated with a therapeutically effective amount of fdU and either 5-FU or the 5-FU prodrug 5-fluoro-2′-deoxyuridine (FdU). The compositions inhibited cell proliferation better than either compound alone.

Issued Patent for “STEP-Derived Peptide for Brain Injury Treatment”
Patent No. 10,087,429, issued October 2, 2018
This technology is currently licensed.
Inventor:  Surojit Paul

This technology is a novel peptide sequence that is a modified derivative of striatal-enriched tyrosine phosphatase (STEP). The peptide sequence has been modified to ameliorate and treat brain injury resulting from excessive glutamate release and/or oxidative stress. Examples of the types of brain injury that the peptide sequence is useful for treating includes stroke, traumatic brain injury and chronic neurological disorders such as Huntington’s chorea and schizophrenia. Furthermore, the peptide sequence also may be useful in the treatment and amelioration of disorders associated with fear memory such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

Issued Patent for “Solid Compositions for Pharmaceutical Use
Patent No. 10,092,660, issued October 9, 2018
Inventors:  Hugh Smyth, Ibrahim M. Sherbiny

This technology is a method for making solid compositions that may be suitable for administering therapeutic agents through inhalation to the lungs of patients with chronic lung infections. The invention further relates to methods of treating a disease, condition, or disorder by administering to a subject such solid compositions.

Issued Patent for “Structure, Synthesis, and Applications for Oligo Phenylene Ethynylenes (OPEs)”
Patent No. 10,092,000, issued October 9, 2018
This technology is currently licensed.
Inventors:  David G. Whitten, Kirk S. Schanze, Eunkyung Ji, Thomas S. Corbitt, Zhijun Zhou, Dimitri Dascier, Ying Wang, Linnea K. Ista, Anand Parthasarathy, Eric H. Hill, Yanli Tang

This technology provides for novel oligo phenylene ethynylene (OPE) compounds, methods for synthesizing these compounds, and materials and substances incorporating these compounds. The various OPEs show antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal activity for a wide range of applications, especially for infection control by adding antimicrobial properties to a variety of materials.

Issued Patent for “Modular RNA Regulators and Methods
Patent No. 10,093,929, issued October 9, 2018
Inventor:  Fu-Sen Liang

This technology is a method for developing and using a new class of modular miRNA regulator molecules to address off-target recognition problems in RNA regulation. Generally, the modular miRNA regulator molecules include a recognition module and an inhibition module. The recognition module includes a polynucleotide in which at least a portion of the polynucleotide recognizes at least a portion of a preselected pre-miRNA. The inhibition module includes a moiety that inhibits nuclease processing of the preselected pre-RNA to a mature RNA.  Abnormal miRNA expression patterns correlate with various conditions, such as cardiomyopathies and cancers.

Issued Patent for “Proppant Compositions and Methods of Use
Patent No. 10,106,727, issued October 23, 2018
Inventors:  Chad Cannan, Terrence Palisch, Richard A. Kemp, Timothy J. Boyle, Bernadette A. Hernandez-Sanchez, James E. Miller

This technology provides proppant compositions and methods for hydraulically fracturing an oil or gas well. More particularly, the invention provides methods for evaluating the effectiveness and performance of a hydraulic fracturing stimulation treatment in an oil or gas well with a proppant composition containing a tracer.  The industry needs a tracer technology that can provide a very large number of unique tracers that are not subject to degradation at the high temperatures and pressures, along with varying salinity and pH, which are often found in well formations.

Issued Patent for “Selective Nanoscale Growth of Lattice Mismatched Materials
Patent No. 10,109,480, issued October 23, 2018
Inventors:  Seung-Chang Lee, Steven R. J. Brueck

This technology provides materials and methods for forming high-quality semiconductor devices using lattice-mismatched materials. A composite film including one or more substantially single-particle-thick nanoparticle layers can be deposited over a substrate as a nanoscale selective growth mask for epitaxially growing lattice-mismatched materials over the substrate.  This technology is applicable for producing the next generation electrical/optoelectronic devices and multi-functional integrated circuits that are strain relieved and have low numbers of defects.

Issued Patent for “Resonance Avalanche Photodiodes for Dynamic Biasing”
Patent No. 10,128,398, issued November 13, 2018
This technology is currently licensed.
Inventors:  Majeed M. Hayat, Payman Zarkesh-Ha

This technology is a system and method for making a resonance circuit, including an avalanche photodiode (APD), in which a resonance frequency of the resonance circuit is matched with the frequency of a dynamic biasing signal of the APD for a variety of applications.  APDs are important components in low-cost receivers but are not able to meet the requirements for high bit-rate telecom system.  This method for blocking and/or compensating current injection associated with the parasitic capacitance of APDs operated under dynamic biasing may be substantially realized by the matching of the resonance frequency of a resonance circuit including the APD with the frequency of an applied dynamic biasing signal.

Issued Patent for “Carbon Dioxide Transformation Facilitated by Earth Abundant Metals
Patent No. 10,131,996, issued November 20, 2018
Inventors:  Richard Kemp, Diane A. Dickie, Elizabeth S. Donovan, Brian Barry

This technology is a method for producing novel complexes of various earth-abundant, inexpensive transition- or main-group metals that facilitate the transformation of carbon dioxide (CO2) into other more useful organic products. These complexes can bind and alter the CO2 at mild conditions of temperature and pressure for an easier and less expensive way to convert electrochemically CO2 into new products.

Issued Patent for “Radially Stacked Solar Cells Based on 2D Atomic Crystals and Methods for Their Production
Patent No. 10,141,469, issued November 27, 2018
Inventors:  Francesca Cavallo, Vijay Saradhi Mangu

This technology is a method for forming the solar cell that includes a sacrificial layer on a support substrate and a barrier layer on the sacrificial layer. The barrier layer has a strain gradient through its thickness. The heterostructure is attached to the barrier layer and the sacrificial layer is removed, thereby separating the barrier layer and the heterostructure from the support substrate. During the removal of the sacrificial layer, the strain gradient causes the barrier layer and heterostructure to roll, curl, or spiral, thereby resulting in a radially stacked heterostructure that provides a light concentrating optical cavity having multiple light absorbing layers with different band gaps.  This technology has potential for producing high-efficiency, low-cost, and stable photovoltaic devices.

Issued Patent for “Device with Heteroepitaxial Structure Made Using a Growth Mask
Patent No. 10,141,418, issued November 27, 2018
Inventors:  Steven R. J. Brueck, Stephen D. Hersee, Seung-Chang Lee, Daniel Feezell

This technology is a method for making a heteroepitaxial layer for CMOS circuits. The method comprises providing a semiconductor substrate. A seed area delineated with a selective growth mask is formed on the semiconductor substrate. The seed area comprises a first material and has a linear surface dimension of less than 100 nm. A heteroepitaxial layer is grown on the seed area, the heteroepitaxial layer comprising a second material that is different from the first material.

Issued Patent for “Fiber Coupled Solar Cell Modules for Concentrated Operation in Consumer Electronics Applications
Patent No. 10,153,725, issued December 11, 2018
Inventors:  Ganesh Balakrishnan, Christopher Hains, Andrew Aragon

This technology is a device for rapidly charging consumer electronics using concentrated solar energy.  It includes a body and a rechargeable battery positioned within the body. A solar cell is coupled to the body and in communication with the battery. A connector is coupled to the body and configured to engage a corresponding connector of a fiber optic cable.

Issued Patent for “Systems and Methods for Integrating Distributed Energy Resources
Patent No. 10,158,234, issued December 18, 2018
Inventors:  Andrea A. Mammoli, Yasser Yasaei

This technology is an apparatus and method for integrating distributed energy resources (DERs) on a power-grid distribution feeder. Specifically, the apparatus and method control a plurality of thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) that collectively perform a useful function in connection with a power-grid distribution feeder.

Issued Patent for “Growth of Cubic Crystalline Phase Structure on Silicon Substrates and Devices Comprising the Cubic Crystalline Phase Structure
Patent No. 10,164,082, issued December 25, 2018
Inventors:  Steven R. J. Brueck, Seung-Chang Lee, Christian Wetzel, Mark Durniak

This technology is a transistor comprised of a substrate of a Group III/V compound semiconductor material having a cubic crystalline phase structure positioned on a hexagonal crystalline phase layer having a first region and a second region, the cubic crystalline phase structure being positioned between the first region and the second region of the hexagonal crystalline phase layer. A source region and a drain region are both positioned in the Group III/V compound semiconductor material. A channel region is in the Group III/V compound semiconductor material. A gate is over the channel region. An optional backside contact can also be formed. A source contact and electrode are positioned to provide electrical contact to the source region, and a drain contact and electrode are positioned to provide electrical contact to the drain region. Methods of forming the transistor are also disclosed.

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