They create novel devices that enable real-time biopsies, light the way for robotic surgery, and help independent-minded teens manage their asthma.

They develop new technologies to target the delivery of drug therapies with unprecedented accuracy, to help stroke victims regain their sight, and to vaccinate people with a simple, wearable skin patch that could have global impact.

Lisa Beck, Danielle Benoit, Paula Doyle, Krystel Huxlin, Hyekyun Rhee, and Jannick Rolland are among the women inventors who have placed the University of Rochester in an enviable position.

According to the World Intellectual Property Organization, Rochester ranked fourth among US universities during 2011–2015 for the percentage of patent holders who are women.

How did Rochester achieve this distinction? What brought these women to the University—and what enabled them to thrive?

Conversations with these inventors suggest important benefits to conducting research at Rochester.

First, while many other Tier 1 research institutions have their medical campuses and their science and engineering departments across town, or even across the state from one another, at Rochester they’re across the street. That proximity, combined with a collegial atmosphere, encourages collaboration across disciplines.

The University has also established programs to support inventors with seed funding and technology transfer assistance. The idea is to encourage risk-taking, building a culture of entrepreneurship in the process.

Click here to read more about the University’s support for entrepreneurs and inventors, and to read about the individual career paths that brought Beck, Benoit, Doyle, Huxlin, Rhee, and Rolland to Rochester.

Researchers at the University have uncovered more evidence that the key to longevity resides in a gene.

In a new paper published in the journal Cell, the researchers—including Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov, professors of biology; Dirk Bohmann, professor of biomedical genetics; and their team of students and postdoctoral researchers—found that the gene sirtuin 6 (SIRT6) is responsible for more efficient DNA repair in species with longer lifespans. The research illuminates new targets for anti-aging interventions and could help prevent age-related diseases.

As humans and other mammals grow older, their DNA is increasingly prone to breaks, which can lead to gene rearrangements and mutations—hallmarks of cancer and aging. For that reason, researchers have long hypothesized that DNA repair plays an important role in determining an organism’s lifespan. While behaviors like smoking can exacerbate double-strand breaks (DSBs) in DNA, the breaks themselves are unavoidable. “They are always going to be there, even if you’re super healthy,” says Bohmann. “One of the main causes of DSBs is oxidative damage and, since we need oxygen to breathe, the breaks are inevitable.”

Organisms like mice have a smaller chance of accumulating double-strand breaks in their comparatively short lives, versus organisms with longer lifespans, Bohmann says. “But, if you want to live for 50 years or so, there’s more of a need to put a system into place to fix these breaks.”

The researchers analyzed DNA repair in 18 rodent species with lifespans ranging from 3 years (mice) to 32 years (naked mole rats and beavers). They found that the rodents with longer lifespans also experience more efficient DNA repair because the products of their SIRT6 genes—the SIRT6 proteins—are more potent. That is, SIRT6 is not the same in every species. Instead, the gene has co-evolved with longevity, becoming more efficient so that species with a stronger SIRT6 live longer. “The SIRT6 protein seems to be the dominant determinant of lifespan,” Bohmann says. “We show that at the cell level, the DNA repair works better, and at the organism level, there is an extended lifespan.”

The researchers then analyzed the molecular differences between the weaker SIRT6 protein found in mice versus the stronger SIRT6 found in beavers. They identified five amino acids responsible for making the stronger SIRT6 protein “more active in repairing DNA and better at enzyme functions,” Gorbunova says. When the researchers inserted beaver and mouse SIRT6 into human cells, the beaver SIRT6 better reduced stress-induced DNA damage compared to when researchers inserted the mouse SIRT6. The beaver SIRT6 also better increased the lifespan of fruit flies versus fruit flies with mouse SIRT6.

Read more here.

The research interests of Bryan Gopaul, assistant professor at the Warner School of Education, span a wide range of topics involving higher education, with a deep commitment to exploring and improving issues of equity and inclusion.

For example, with a colleague he is studying how organizational climates and cultures, as informed by senior leadership, impact faculty work and retention at different colleges and universities. Gopaul is also studying the experiences of post-doctoral researchers, and examining who joins the professoriate and who does not.

“There is inequality in the experiences of post-doctoral researchers that I want to shine a light on because there’s been a lot of focus on doctoral education and faculty work but not as much on post docs. This is an increasing population that deserves more attention.”

A common theme of his work is the “configuration of educational contexts,” he says. “While people are a part of that, I’m interested in stepping back and seeing how the system is configured, the policies and practices involved, and the rituals occurring that are emblematic of how the system runs. But what I’m mostly concerned with is which people are passed over and which people gain illumination from the way in which the system is configured.”

“I use different tools to look at what’s missing, who’s missing, what voices aren’t being heard in that system, how we can apply different perspectives to identify and acknowledge that there are people who are not part of the conversation, and then how we recast or recalibrate that educational context in ways that are more mindful and equity driven.”

Read all of a Q and A with Gopaul here.

Kimberly A. Van Orden, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, who is recipient of the Shneidman Award from the American Association of Suicidology (AAS) for her outstanding contributions in research in that field. Van Orden is the associate director of the CSPS postdoctoral fellowship in suicide prevention research. She also directs the HOPE (Helping Older People Engage) Lab, which focuses on developing and testing interventions to increase connectedness. Social isolation in its many forms is strongly linked to suicide across the lifespan. She also contributed to the formulation, refinement and evaluation of the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide  and applies the ideas in this theory to develop and test effective strategies for helping individuals connect and contribute in ways that are meaningful for them to prevent the development of suicidal thoughts.

Kathryn Mariner, an assistant professor of anthropology and visual and cultural studies, who is one of 32 faculty members in the United States named new Career Enhancement Fellows by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. Mariner will receive a six-month fellowship to support her project on the relationship between social inequality and placemaking in Rochester, tentatively titled “Fertile Ground.” Mariner’s research focuses on the relationship between social inequality and intimacy in the United States. Her upcoming book, Contingent Kinship (University of California Press), is about transracial adoption in Chicago, specifically the ways in which race and class are factors in the decision-making process. Read more here.

Richard Bell, pathology, “Elucidating the Role of the Synovial Lymphatic Systems in Rheumatoid Arthritis.” 1 p.m. today, April 26, 2019. 1-7619 Lower Adolph (Medical Center). Advisor: Edward Schwarz.

Zizhen Ma, economics, “Essays on Dynamics and Information in Political Economy.” 1 p.m. May 10, 2019. Harkness 113. Advisor: Paulo Barelli.

Viviane Sanfelice, economics, “Essays in Public Policies using City Neighborhoods Variation.” 1 p.m., May 9, 2019. Harkness 113. Advisor: Ronni Pavan.

Today: Preproposals due for Technology Development Fund awards of up to $100,000 to develop a technology to a commercial endpoint. Submit preproposals to omar.bakht@rochester.edu. View more information online.

May 1: Deadline to apply for funding of up to $30,000 from the Environmental Health Sciences Center (EHSC) for pilot projects relevant to the center’s theme: environmental agents as modulators of human disease and dysfunction. For additional information, contact Deborah Cory-Slechta,  Pat Noonan-Sullivan or go to the EHSC website.

May 2: Jesse L. Rosenberger Works-in-Progress seminar. Tracy Stuber and Anastasia Nikolis, Public Humanities graduate fellows, present a public humanities fellowship update. Noon to 2 p.m. Humanities Center Conference Room D at Rush Rhees LIbrary. Lunch provided. RSVP by clicking here.

May 3: Applications due for high-risk, high-reward pilot projects offered through the Lung Biology and Disease program. All faculty are eligible to apply, including research and tenure-track faculty.

May 15: Deadline to apply for funding from the UR CTSI Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC) to write a Synergy Paper focusing on a new approach to translational science or a review of a pressing translational science topic. All application requirements are on the CLIC website.

May 23: The Rochester Advanced Materials Science Program (RAMP) Symposium, on the topic of “Biologically Engineered Materials.” 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Goergen Hall Sloan Auditorium. Featuring five keynote speakers, a poster session, and lightning talks.  Register for a poster presentation and lightning talks by e-mailing Gina Eagan. 

May 23: Deadline to apply for funding from the Center for Emerging and Innovative Sciences (CEIS) to support projects with NY companies that promote technology transfer to those companies. All proposals must be submitted by email as attachments using the forms on the CEIS web site at http://www.ceis.rochester.edu/funding/CIRP.html. Documentation of company commitment must accompany the proposal. Proposals must be received by Cathy Adams (cathy.adams@rochester.edu, 585-275-3999). Questions may be addressed to her as well.

June 1: Un-meeting to foster new collaborations and ideas and explore innovative approaches to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning at all stages of the translational science spectrum. Hosted by the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (UR CTSI). 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saunders Research Building. Register by Monday, May 13.