- Burnett School Cancer Division College of Medicine Faculty News Research
UCF ranks among the top 20 U.S. public universities for utility patents granted, including two from cancer researchers at the College of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has announced.
Patents play a crucial role in fostering innovation and protecting intellectual property, enabling universities like UCF to transform groundbreaking research into real-world applications. UCF’s high ranking by the NAI highlights its significant contributions to global technological advancements and its commitment to driving positive change worldwide.
The rankings are based on The Top 100 Worldwide Universities List. The rankings use calendar year data provided by the United States Patent and Trademark Office and aim to provide a comprehensive view of intellectual property protection in the innovation ecosystem.
For the 2024 ranking, UCF secures its placement with 68 patents on the NAI worldwide list for the 12th consecutive year.
Here is information on the two College of Medicine faculty whose patents contributed to the 2024 report:
Immune Cell Modifications to Better Fight Disease
Lead researcher: Associate Professor Alicja Copik
Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, College of Medicine
This invention relates to methods and compositions for modulating the activity of natural killer (NK) cells. NK cells are a type of immune cell that plays a critical role in eliminating infected or cancerous cells. The disclosed methods and compositions can enhance NK cell activity, thereby improving the immune system’s ability to fight disease. These methods may offer advantages over previous approaches to stimulating NK cells, such as improved specificity, reduced toxicity, or enhanced effectiveness against certain types of cancer or infection. This technology was licensed to a UCF startup company which was later acquired.
Lung Cancer Killing Proteins
Lead researcher: Professor Annette Khaled
Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, College of Medicine
Genes provide instructions for making proteins, but these proteins must be folded into functional three-dimensional shapes by helper proteins called chaperones. Cancer cells depend heavily on chaperones due to their unstable genes that produce many damaging misfolded proteins. While initially found to be safe, available drugs that inhibit protein-folding chaperones in cancer cells did not stop cancer growth since chaperones are abundant and hard to inhibit without toxicity.
Researchers identified a chaperonin called CCT, highly expressed in cancer cells but not in healthy cells. Unlike other chaperones, CCT folds proteins essential for cancer growth and spread. The invention is a small peptide designed to target and bind the subunits that form the CCT machine, inhibiting its ability to fold proteins. This peptide can be delivered to solid tumors like breast or prostate cancer using nanoparticles. Cancer cells take up the peptide and, within hours, lose the ability to form essential proteins needed for their survival and die. In contrast, healthy cells that take the peptide are minimally affected. The CCT inhibitory peptide is a first-in-kind drug that is a substrate-independent of the chaperonin and has broad application.
This technology is being licensed to a startup company.
For more information on UCF patents, please visit https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-among-top-20-u-s-public-universities-granted-u-s-utility-patents-in-2024/
Post Tags
- cancer research U.S. Patents