The CU Technology Transfer Office is happy to report that a research group led by Christopher Bowman of the CU-Boulder Chemical & Biological Engineering department recently received a patent for an improved method of detecting molecular recognition events, for use in diagnostic and environmental sensing applications. This patent is part of a portfolio of intellectual property generated by this group covering technology that uses polymeric materials (rather than conventional enzymatic amplification) to generate an amplified response to molecular recognition events in order to permit detection of low levels of biological molecules. This IP portfolio has been developed by CU startup InDevR, Inc. as part of its ampliPHOX® Colorimetric Microarray Detection system.
TTO filed this patent application on behalf of the university in Sept. 2009; in addition to two related U.S. patents, patent protection has also been granted in the EU. The patent (U.S. 8,652,778, “Use of photopolymerization for amplification and detection of a Molecular Recognition Event”) was issued on Feb. 18, 2014. In addition to Dr. Bowman, the other CU inventors on this patent were John Birks (Fellow Emeritus, CIRES); Kathy Rowlen (formerly UCB Chemistry & Biochemistry, now CEO of InDevR); and Hadley Sikes (formerly UCB C&BE, now at MIT).