Innovator of the Year and other powerhouse inventors honored in UTSA’s 2024 Innovation Awards

Christine Burke presented James Chambers with the Innovator of the Year award at the ceremony for UTSA’s 2024 Innovation Awards.

DECEMBER 17, 2024 — Winners of UTSA’s annual Innovation Awards were recently announced, in recognition of their substantial contributions to the university's research and development ecosystem through patents, licensing agreements, participation in the National Science Foundation's I-Corps program and induction into the National Academy of Inventors. A total of 40 people were recognized at the event. Among the awardees, biochemist James Chambers, a professor in the UTSA Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, was named 2024 Innovator of the Year.

“UTSA is a catalyst for innovation, fostering a vibrant community of research and development that is dedicated to discovery and impact,” said Christine Burke, director of the Office of Commercialization and Innovation (OCI). “Our researchers have exceptional creativity and drive to build transformative technologies that benefit society, and that’s evident in the over three dozen awardees we celebrated this week.”

The UTSA Innovation Awards recognize innovation excellence annually in four categories representing key indicators of UTSA’s success at commercializing innovations. These include:

• Recipients of issued patents, trademarks and/or copyrights.
  
  
• Faculty members whose intellectual property was successfully optioned or licensed. Innovators with technologies that are newly optioned, licensed or are now generating returns for the university are recognized.
  
  
• Faculty, staff, students and team mentors who have participated in the National Science Foundation I-Corps program.
  
  
• Innovator of the Year

In addition to these awards, new members of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) were also honored.

Andrew Mass, associate vice president for research – innovation & ecosystem development at Louisiana State University, was the keynote speaker at the event.

“Our researchers have exceptional creativity and drive to build transformative technologies that benefit society.”

Innovator of the Year

James Chambers

James Chambers’ research and academic accomplishments include publishing 165 peer-reviewed journal articles in top-tier journals, securing over $10 million in grant funding from a variety of federal agencies and private sector sponsors, and numerous teaching awards, academic honors and designations, including Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

Chambers is an internationally recognized biochemist with multiple patents that have benefited public health and safety. In 1988, he created the first-ever sensor that detects chemical agents and toxins on the battlefield, earning him the U.S. Army’s Distinguished Service Award. Later, he developed a test to identify the threat agent Francisella (for which he received a patent in 2011) and helped create a viral transport medium used globally for rapid COVID-19 testing in 2020-2021.

Chambers is one of three founders of the Phage Refinery, a company dedicated to screening and isolating environmental phages. A phage, or bacteriophage, is a virus that infects and kills bacteria. Researchers use these isolated viruses to create therapeutics for bacterial pathogens that have developed drug resistance.

Issued Intellectual Property: Patents

This year, UTSA recognized inventors who together garnered 11 issued patents including:

• Kelly Nash, Gregory Guisbiers and Humberto Herman Lara Villegas
  • 11,825,847 Antimicrobial coating comprising chalcogenide nano-particles capped by chitosan
  • Methods of making pure chalcogenide nanoparticles for use in antimicrobials and antimicrobial coatings effective against biofilms
    
    
• Eugene John and Alekhya Muthineni
  • 11,838,403 Method and apparatus for an ultra low power VLSI implementation of the 128-bit AES algorithm using a novel approach to the shiftrow transformation
  • Improved processing and functionality of performance of the 128-bit AES Encryption Algorithm, which may provide improved power consumption for power constrained devices
    
    
• Ravinderpal Sandhu, James Benson, Farhan Patwa and Maanak Gupta
  • 11,858,517 Dynamic groups and attribute-based access control for next-generation smart cars
  • Methods for secure communication, data exchange and resource access in smart vehicle ecosystems
    
    
• Jing Yong Ye and Jonathan D. Scudder
  • 11,892,397 Endotoxin testing assay and method of same
  • An improved assay of endotoxins that allows for rapid and ultrahigh sensitivity testing of pharmaceuticals or medical devices
    
    
• Eugene Britto John and Ram Narayan Krishnan
  • 11,948,596 Method and apparatus for defending against laser or other electromagnetic wave-based audio injection attacks on voice-controllable devices and systems
  • Device for preventing voice-controlled devices from being hacked through their microphones
    
    
• Stanton McHardy, Bryan Davies, Ashley Cunningham and Hua-Yu Wang
  • 11,952,330 Antibiotic ammonium compounds and methods for the treatment of bacterial infections
  • Ammonium compounds useful as antimicrobial agents for the treatment of gastrointestinal conditions
    
    
• Stanton McHardy, Stanley Watowich, Harshini Neelakantan and Hua-Yu Wang
  • 2018244463 (Australia) Quinoline derived small molecule inhibitors of nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT) and uses thereof
  • Nicotinamide N-methyltransferase (NNMT) inhibitors useful for the treatment of musculoskeletal disorders and metabolic diseases
    
    
• Teja Guda, Joo Leng Ong, Solaleh Miar and Gregory Robert Dion
  • 12,029,815 Mucoadhesive patch and uses thereof
  • A mucoadhesive patch for attachment to a mucosal surface in a patient to provide air- and water-tight closure
    
    
• Sara Ahmed, Samer Dessouky, Zachary Balcar, Ayetullah Baha Biten and Jerome Helffrich
  • 12,041,381 Passive infrared sensing and detection for traffic
  • A device for the detection of vehicular traffic using passive infrared sensing, greatly decreasing power requirements in remote settings
    
    
• Carlos Garcia and Tomas Benavidez
  • 11,819,592 Adsorption of proteins on conducting surfaces upon application of external potential
  • Improved methods for adsorbing proteins onto solid substrates to create solid substrate biosensors
    
    
• Amir Jafari
  • 11,911,897 Mechanically over-damped actuators having adjustable stiffness
  • Robotic actuators that enable stiffness adjustability, a necessity for applications such as physical human-robot interactions in which robots and humans work in close proximity.

Licensing Activity

The following innovators had optioned or licensed technology during 2024:

• Robert Lyle Hood
  • EmergenceMed LLC for developing a device that clears a patient’s airway in emergency situations.
    
    
• James P. Chambers
  • Phage Refinery, LLC for developing processes for the rapid screening of environmental phages to increase the likelihood of these viruses being developed and used as therapeutics for dangerous bacterial pathogens.
    
    
• Chiungyu Hung
  • Anavive Lifesciences, for exploring potential Valley Fever therapeutics.
    
    
• John Quarles
  • RightEye, LLC, Eye tracking AI solutions

NAI Membership

This year, two UTSA faculty members were inducted as senior members into the National Academy of Inventors:

• Teja Guda, Biomedical Engineering
• Karl Klose, Molecular Microbiology and Immunology

Additionally, Stanton McHardy, Chemistry, has been elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in the class of 2024.

NSF I-Corps Recognition

Several faculty and staff members, students and industry mentors participated in the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps™ program. Through this accelerator program, a research team is mentored through the customer discovery process in order to better understand market needs and business best practice. To date, UTSA has sent 20 teams to national I-Corps cohorts. This year’s team is a flipped team, meaning the company has already formed, and they have already received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding:

Enova Concepts

William Paul Flynn | Technical Lead
Sean Garnsey | Co-Technical Lead
Matthew Trippy | Entrepreneurial Lead
Kaitlyn Bloch | Mentor

The OCI works with faculty to facilitate technology transfer and commercialization and to establish and strengthen university-industry partnerships. The team manages a portfolio of over 350 technologies, primarily in cyber, biosciences and medical devices, and advanced materials. In FY 2024, it filed 48 patent applications and prosecuted 11 patents to issuance. Additionally, it received 34 technology disclosures and four licenses/options.

“This year we celebrate 10 years at UTSA of I-Corps changing how inventors think about the potential of their technology,” Burke said. “From the customer discovery research of I-Corps to transformative team-based mentoring offered by our local Venture Mentoring Service and our New Venture Incubator and state-of-the-art wet lab start-up space, UTSA provides essential resources that enable inventors and start-ups to flourish.