News Release April 21, 2004

Contacts:
Lee Tune (301) 405-4679
Judd D. Antin (301) 403-2711 ext. 17

UM Announces Inventions of the Year and Entrepreneurship Award Winners

A powerful discovery in antiviral technology, a system for determining the location of radio transmitters, and a technique for using celestial bodies for interstellar navigation are the winners of the 17th annual Invention of the Year Awards, presented this Wednesday, April 21st, by the Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) at the University of Maryland College Park.

The winners for 2003 were announced at an afternoon reception which was attended by over 120 members of the University and Maryland business communities. The awards are presented annually to honor outstanding inventions and inventors from the previous year. Each year a panel of judges made up of both University of Maryland personnel and industry experts selects one winner from groups of finalists in each of three categories: information science, life science, and physical science. The winners are chosen based on the creativity, novelty, and potential benefit to society of each of the inventions.

Also presented this year was the 2nd annual Award for Entrepreneurship, sponsored by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO). The award honors University of Maryland inventors who have founded successful start-up companies in Maryland based on technologies licensed through OTC. This year’s award was presented to Dr. John Hryniewicz and Dr. Brent Little of Little Optics, Inc.

Information Science Invention of the Year

Horus: An RF-Based Location Determination System

Dr. Ashok K. Agrawala and Moustafa Amin Youssef

Radio frequency-based location determination systems have been in use for quite some time in the form of GPS, cellular systems, and visual and physical contact-based methods. These systems usually require dedicated hardware, consume a relatively large amount of power, and provide information of varying accuracy. Horus, a novel location determination technology developed by Dr. Ashok K. Agrawala and Moustafa Amin Youssef in the Department of Computer Science, capitalizes on the increasing implementation of wireless networks to provide efficient and accurate location determination without the necessity of additional hardware.

Horus—named after the Egyptian solar falcon god—uses unique algorithms to efficiently process the signal information which is used to determine position. The system also features advances in overcoming signal noise, reducing energy requirements, and building a ‘radio map’ which an Rf-based location system uses to construct a picture of its environment.

Finalists in the information science category were “Probabilistic Face Recognition from Video,” developed by Shaohua Zhou and Dr. Ramalingam Chellappa of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and “Technique for Performing Polarization-Independent Optical Cross-Correlations,” invented by Dr. Reza Salem and Dr. Thomas E. Murphy, also of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Life Science Invention of the Year

A Novel Target for Antiviral Therapeutics

Dr. Jonathan David Dinman

Many viruses (including the HIV virus and the SARS-related coronavirus) use a process called programmed ribosomal frameshifting (PRF) in order to produce the viral proteins necessary for their reproduction. The efficiency with which the virus reproduces hinges upon the availability of precise ratios of the viral proteins produced through processes such as PRF. As a result, a better understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the control of PRF could allow researchers to develop antiviral therapies which interfere with the process.

Dr. Jonathan David Dinman, a researcher in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, has discovered that preventing a specific ribosomal protein from interacting with the ribosome during the PRF process can be an effective anti-viral treatment. This method has been shown to make the PRF process more efficient, thereby increasing the amount of viral protein it produces and changing the precise ratios which are required for the efficient reproduction of the virus. This invention has the potential to advance the field of antiviral research by assisting in the development of therapies which target both the PRF process and the specific ribosomal protein.

Finalists in the life science category were “Enhanced Cancer Therapy,” invented by Dr. Bernadene Ann Magnuson and Dr. Tao Yu of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science; and “Obesity Treatment,” developed by Dr. Thomas W. Castonguay, also of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science.

Physical Science Invention of the Year

Navigation Using X-Ray Sources

Suneel Ismail Sheikh and Dr. Darryll J. Pines

Systems for accurate position-finding and navigation have become increasingly ubiquitous in recent years. The Global Positioning System (GPS), which uses a constellation of satellites to triangulate exact positions on the globe, is one such technology. Systems such as GPS, however, have several dramatic shortcomings. Because GPS uses a system of many orbiting satellites, it requires constant human intervention and monitoring to maintain its reliability. This regular maintenance has proven to be extremely expensive. In addition, GPS is of limited use for aerospace applications which send vehicles out beyond the orbital range of GPS satellites.

Suneel Ismail Sheikh and Dr. Darryll J. Pines of the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Maryland College Park have developed a novel navigation system which uses pulsed X-Ray radiation from distant celestial bodies to determine time, position, velocity, and attitude. Because the system relies only on X-ray radiation for its operation, it can function autonomously and without the costly maintenance that systems such as GPS require. The invention has the additional advantage of being secure, since there is no known method for interfering with X-ray signals from celestial bodies.

Finalists in the physical science category were “Arbitrary and Simultaneous Control of Multiple Particles in Micro-Fluidic Systems,” developed by Dr. Benjamin Shapiro, Satej Chaudhary, and Michael Daniel Armani of the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Roland Probst of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering; and “Method and Device for Nanoscale Plasma Processing of Materials,” invented by Dr. Gottlieb S. Oehrlein, Xuefeng Hua, and Christian Stolz of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.

Award for Entrepreneurship

Little Optics, Inc.

Dr. Brent Little and Dr. John Hryniewicz

Dr. Brent Little and Dr. John Hryniewicz, both formerly of the Lab for Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland, are co-founders of Annapolis Junction, MD-based Little Optics and winners of the 2 nd annual Award for Entrepreneurship. Little Optics, a University of Maryland start-up company, was founded in 2000 with the mission of designing and developing integrated optical components for communications, military, and sensing applications that dramatically improve on current products both in price and performance. Little Optics currently occupies a 35,000-square-foot-facility, including a 4,000-square-foot clean room for wafer fabrication.

Little Optics' proprietary technology was developed with funds from the Department of Defense, and the technology was licensed through OTC. A recipient of a Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) grant to collaborate with University of Maryland Baltimore County Professor Ray Chen, Little Optics has also collaborated with Professor Govind Rao at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Little Optics received its first round of venture funding, $10 million, in the summer of 2001 and currently employs 22 people in the state of Maryland, 11 of whom were trained at the University of Maryland College Park.

The Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) at the University of Maryland was established in 1986 to facilitate the transfer of information, life and physical science inventions developed at the university to business and industry. In the past 17 years, OTC has recorded more than 1200 technologies, secured more than 200 patents and licensed more than 700 technologies, generating more than $21.7 million in technology transfer income. In addition, more than 40 high-tech start-up companies have been formed based on technologies developed at the university.