Pitt Research Launches Two Tech Companies During 2011

Linda van Roosmalen

The number of University of Pittsburgh innovations that have moved from the lab to commercialization increased by 31 percent in fiscal year 2011, resulting in 105 licenses or options to industry and two start-up companies for Pitt technologies. This increase in commercialization activity also included 37 U.S. patents that were awarded to the University in 2011 and the submission of 257 new invention disclosures by Pitt faculty, according to Pitt’s Office of Technology Management (OTM).

The OTM released its annual report Oct. 12 at Pitt’s 7th Annual Celebration of Innovation reception. The event celebrated OTM’s 15 years of operation and honored researchers whose innovations were licensed/optioned in 2011.

More than 400 Pitt researchers submitted invention disclosures in FY 2010-11. Among them was Marlin Mickle, the Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor in the Swanson School of Engineering, whose research led to the 2011 start-up company, Ortho-Tag, Inc. The company designs radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology for tracking and monitoring prosthetic joints. Wireless chips, or tags, are attached to implanted prostheses, allowing orthopaedic doctors to obtain specific information about a joint by waving a wand over the prosthesis to capture recorded data.

Another business, LINC Design LLC, was started by Linda van Roosmalen, a former visiting professor in the Department of Rehabilitation Science and Technology in Pitt’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Science, along with Michael Turkovich, a bioengineering doctoral student at Pitt. They developed a new barrier system to contain wheelchairs and restrain wheelchair-seated passengers when they are traveling in large accessible transit vehicles. Their technology forms the basis of LINC Design.

The launching of Ortho-Tag and LINC Design raises the total number of start-up companies established from Pitt technologies to 80 since the OTM’s inception in 1996.

Other notable inventions featured in the 2011 annual report included a way to give asthma sufferers an alert to a possible attack, an improved method of diagnosing  gastroesophageal reflux disease during infancy, and software that calculates cancer mortality risks by studying a person’s demographic, geographic, and work history.

The OTM facilitates the development and commercialization of Pitt innovations, helping innovators patent their intellectual property, market it to potential outside partners, execute commercial licenses/options, and launch new companies.

To read OTM’s FY 2010-11 annual report, visit http://www.news.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/documents/2011%20OTM%20Annual%20Report-Final.pdf.

The University of Pittsburgh’s 7th Annual Celebration of Innovation, held on Oct. 12 at the University Club, honored 53 Pitt researchers with Innovator Awards, including Marlin Mickle (second from left), the Nickolas A. DeCecco Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Earlier this year, Mickle and his research team created Ortho-Tag, Inc., a company that makes tags imbued with radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology that, once attached to prosthetic joints, allows doctors to track and monitor the artificial joints with a wave of a wand. From left, Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor Patricia E. Beeson; Mickle; Arthur S. Levine, dean of Pitt’s School of Medicine and senior vice chancellor for the health sciences; and Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg.