National Academy of Inventors Elects Lollar, Mayberg as Fellows
Election to NAI fellow status is a high professional distinction accorded to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.
John S. (Pete) Lollar - Lollar is director of Hemostasis Research in the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Emory University; professor of pediatrics at Emory School of Medicine; and Hemophilia of Georgia, Inc., Chair in Hemostasis. He is a holder, or co-holder, of 10 U.S. patents. He has directed a research team for more than 25 years with the goals of obtaining a better understanding of basic mechanisms of hemostasis and improving treatment for patients with hemophilia. Hemophilia is a group of blood clotting disorders leading to excessive bleeding that can occur spontaneously or following injury or surgery. Hemophilia A is caused by a deficiency of clotting factor VIII, and can be either inherited or acquired.
Lollar cofounded the biotechnology company, Octagen, which in 1998 licensed technology from Emory University to develop novel recombinant factor VIII molecules derived from the protein sequence of pigs. The result was the drug Obizur, a treatment for acquired hemophilia A. Baxter International brought Obizur to commercial availability, and the drug was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in Oct. 2014.
Lollar’s group currently is pursuing methods to increase the synthesis of factor VIII, which potentially could lead to the development of gene therapy for patients with hemophilia A.
Helen Mayberg - Mayberg is a neurologist and Professor of Psychiatry, Neurology, and Radiology and Dorothy C. Fuqua Chair in Psychiatric Neuroimaging and Therapeutics at Emory University School of Medicine. Working over the last 25 years in both the U.S. and Canada, Mayberg has directed multidisciplinary research teams working to define neural systems mediating mood and emotions in health and disease with a primary focus on major depression and its recovery. This work integrates multimodal imaging techniques, quantitative behavioral and psychophysiological metrics, and experimental treatment trials to define brain-based biomarkers that can optimize treatment selection for individual patients with major depression.
This work was foundational for the first studies of subcallosal cingulate deep brain stimulation (DBS) for treatment resistant depression, which remains the cornerstone of current studies to both refine and optimize DBS implementation and characterize network mechanisms mediating its antidepressant effects.
Mayberg is co-holder of the U.S. patent to define a method for Treating Depression, Mood Disorders and Anxiety Disorders using Neuromodulation, which was licensed to Advanced Neuromodulation Systems/St. Jude Medical, Inc. in 2008, and is currently in clinical trials for patients with treatment resistant depression.
National Academy of Inventors -The total number of National Academy of Inventor Fellows is 582, representing more than 190 prestigious research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutions.
Read the full article here: https://news.emory.edu/stories/2015/12/nai_lollar_mayberg/campus.html