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The NIH Technology Transfer Program has won the Licensing Executive Society’s Deals of Distinction award for 2022. The Deals of Distinction Award is given to an outstanding licensing deal from the past year. Steve Ferguson, Special Advisor at the NIH Office of Technology Transfer, recently attended the LES award ceremony to accept the award on NIH’s behalf. Continue reading to learn about this award-winning license agreement from Steve himself.

NIAID TTIPO’s extraordinary efforts in “COVID-19 Technologies Licensed Globally Through WHO Program” was recognized by the Licensing Executives Society (U.S.A. & Canada) in 2022 with a Deals of Distinction Award in the Industry-University-Government Interface Sector. This award acknowledged the collaborative efforts put forth by the WHO, Medicines Patent Pool (MPP) and the NIH for COVID-19 technologies licensed globally through the WHO program.

Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) developed a low-cost technology to rapidly detect HIV-1 drug resistance (HIVDR) in plasma and dried blood spot (DBS) samples with 95.8% genotyping sensitivity. CDC’s partners at Life Technologies Corporation (“LifeTech”) have licensed, further developed, and incorporated the technology into a commercialized product. Life Tech’s HIV-1 Genotyping Kit provides a cost-effective assay, scalable workflow, easy-to read sequencing results, and robust test performance.

This development is the first and only FDA approved diagnostic test kit for parvovirus B19. Parvovirus B19 infection in pregnancy is often overlooked simply because most infected pregnant women are asymptomatic or have only mild manifestations, such as slight itching. However, pregnant women (in the first and second trimesters) with the B19 infection can give rise to serious fetal complications during pregnancy. Up to 50% of women are susceptible to parvovirus B19 infection. The B19 infection may result in anemia, pregnancy miscarriage and/or other problems.

This new, accelerated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) method reduces the total imaging time for lengthy scans. The method may be used for imaging dynamic events such as heart motion or brain activity. The technology exploits the spatial and temporal correlation of magnetic resonance signals by combining parallel imaging and temporal filtering to achieve a new MRI technique referred to as (TSENSE). The TSENSE method has a higher degree of artifact suppression using parallel imaging and temporal filtering.

Most people are aware that anti-cancer treatments often have negative side effects, but patients are willing to tolerate these side effects for the potential life-saving effects of the treatment. However, some patients treated with the anti-cancer drug 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) will have fatal reactions typically caused by cardiotoxicity. A life-saving diagnostic test to identify cancer patients who may experience 5-FU toxicity has been developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Most people are aware that anti-cancer treatments often have negative side effects, but patients are willing to tolerate these side effects for the potential life-saving effects of the treatment. However, some patients treated with the anti-cancer drug 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) will have fatal reactions typically caused by cardiotoxicity. A life-saving diagnostic test to identify cancer patients who may experience 5-FU toxicity has been developed by scientists at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is an MRI method that produces in vivo magnetic resonance images of biological tissues sensitized with the localized and contrasting characteristics of water diffusion, producing microscopic images of tissues. Water molecules become excited when exposed to a strong magnetic field, which causes the protons in water molecules to move in a coordinated and precise way. The intensity of each image element (voxel) reflects the best estimate of the rate of water diffusion at that location.

A tissue microarray (TMA) is an important technique used by pathologists to accurately analyze tissue samples. It is a means of aggregating tissue samples in an organized grid fashion for high throughput analysis. Automated TMAs are commercially available, but they are expensive ($16,000-$230,000) and require specialized training and experience to apply the technology.