It requires tremendous effort to turn a discovery into a product or service that enriches lives. The Innovation Awards, hosted by University of Alberta’s Technology Transfer Services (TTS) team, celebrates members of the university community who have risen to that challenge.
TTS provides support and resources to protect intellectual property and to navigate the process of transferring it to industry partners. The 2025 Innovation Awards showcased innovators TTS has supported in 2024-2025.
This year’s celebration also marked a first for the hosts as TTS recently transitioned into the newly established International and Enterprise portfolio. Under this new banner, the ceremony highlighted innovators driving social, environmental and economic impact across the College of Health Sciences, College of Natural and Applied Sciences and College of Social Sciences and Humanities.
“The talent across our campuses is truly remarkable,” says Joanna Preston, Director of Technology Transfer Services. “It is a privilege to support these researchers as they transform ideas into solutions. We are proud to celebrate their success in taking U of A innovation out into the world.”
The awards recognize U of A researchers and innovators who have received issued US patents, have licensed IP or formed spinoff companies (meaning those formed based on patentable IP) in 2024-25.
US Patents (2024-25)
- Holger Wille, Innocuous, Structured Scaffold For Structure-Based Amyloid Disease Vaccines And Antigens
- Hanyong Peng, Near-Infrared Photothermally Activated CRISPR/CAS9 Genome Editing Machine
- Graham Plastow, Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms and Feeding Efficiency in Cattle
- Alireza Gharaati Jahromi, Antenna with Tilted Beam for Use on Angled Surfaces
- Zhongyi Quan, Systems and Methods for Direct Current Power Distribution
- Robert Wolkow, Atomic Nano-Positioning Device
Canadian Plant Breeders' Rights (2024-25)
- Dean Spaner, GP250 (Alotta)
- Dean Spaner, CWRS Wheat Cultivar HY2082 (UA Forefront)
Licenses Granted (2024-25)
- Darryl Rolfson, Edmonton Frail Scale; Edmonton Frail Scale - Acute Care
- Toshifumi Yokota, Antisense Therapy Utilizing Locked Nucleic Acid Gapmer Against FSHD
- Matthew Macauley, CD33 Splicing Cell-based Screening Assay
- Afsaneh Lavasanifar, Novel Self-associating Polycation Derivatives for Nucleic Acid Delivery
- Michael Weinfeld, Dennis Hall and Afsaneh Lavasanifar, Small Molecule Inhibitors of Human Polynucleotide Kinase/Phosphatase (PNKP); Synthetic Lethal Partners of Human Polynucleotide Kinase/Phosphatase; New Imido-Piperidine Compounds as Inhibitors of Human Polynucleotide Kinase Phosphatase; Synergistic Nanomedicine Delivering Topoisomerase I Toxin (SN-38) and Inhibitors of Polynucleotide Kinase 3-Phosphatase (PNKP) for Enhanced Treatment of Colorectal Cancer
Spinoff Companies (2024-25)
- Peter Light and Masoud Baghelani, Fringe Field Technologies Inc.
- Gregory Korbutt and Andrew Pepper, Transcyto Therapeutics Inc.
- Avik Mandal and Behrad Gholipour, Spectreomics
- Jonathan Curtis, Tolibjon Omonov and Ereddad Kharraz, COROL Corp
- Roger Zemp and Mohammad Sobhani, CliniSonix Inc.