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Two U of U Health Professors Named 2023 National Academy of Inventors Senior Members

Thomas (Wade) Fallin and Bellamkonda Kishore
Thomas (Wade) Fallin and Bellamkonda Kishore, M.D., Ph.D.

麻豆学生精品版 professors Thomas (Wade) Fallin and Bellamkonda Kishore, M.D., Ph.D., have been named Senior Members by the . They are part of the 2023 class of  made up of 95 of the foremost emerging academic inventors identified by NAI鈥檚 Member Institutions.

Fallin and Kishore join Ashutosh Tiwari, Ph.D., an engineering professor at the U, as the university鈥檚 three NAI Senior Members. Tiwari was elected in 2021. NAI Senior Members are active faculty, scientists, and administrators from NAI Member Institutions who have demonstrated remarkable innovation producing technologies that have brought, or aspire to bring, real impact on the welfare of society. They also have growing success in patents, licensing, and commercialization, while educating and mentoring the next generation of inventors.

Wade Fallin

Fallin, an orthopaedics research professor and Louis S. Peery, M.D. Orthopaedic Innovation Center (LSP OIC) executive director, has started and sold five companies in the medical device industry with a focus on the orthopaedics and spine markets and holds over 250 issued U.S. patents.

鈥淢y entire career focus has been on innovating new medical device technologies that reduce pain and suffering resulting from injury or disease,鈥 Fallin said. 鈥淚n addition to being a 鈥榮erial entrepreneur,鈥 I have been fortunate to have the opportunity to be a 鈥榮erial innovator,鈥 which has led to over a dozen commercial orthopaedic surgical systems that are in clinical use around the world today.鈥 

The LSP OIC and Fallin, with his history as an entrepreneur combined with his experience at the U starting in 2019, are excellent resources to U faculty members and students looking to 鈥渦nderstand the process of translating from early-stage ideas to something that's clinically and commercially successful for medical devices,鈥 Fallin said.

鈥淭he National Academy of Inventors fosters innovation in academic settings,鈥 Fallin said. 鈥淭heir membership works to increase the level of innovation at universities, so being part of that is really appealing to me.鈥

Bellamkonda Kishore, M.D., Ph.D.

Kishore, an adjunct professor of internal medicine (nephrology), has researched physiology, pathophysiology, and experimental therapeutics of the kidney, obesity, and related systems for 40 years. His career has spanned the globe from India and Japan to Belgium and the United States, including four years at the intramural research program of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and two decades as faculty in the Department of Internal Medicine at 麻豆学生精品版 and principal investigator in the  Salt Lake City Health Care System.

Recently, Kishore鈥檚 career branched off to a new path鈥攅ntrepreneurship. In addition to his adjunct position at the U, he is the CEO, president, co-founder, and CSO of ePurines, a startup located in the U鈥檚 Research Park. Kishore鈥檚 patented technologies鈥攃ommercialized through ePurines鈥攐ffer innovative purinergic signaling-based therapies for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and a variety of kidney, liver, heart, and lung diseases with a target patient population of 500 million to 1 billion globally.

When Kishore graduated from medical school in 1976, he spent barely six months practicing medicine before deciding to return to medical school to research the kidney. 鈥淭hat was a very tough decision because you鈥檙e leaving a bright and secure future,鈥 he said. 鈥淏ut my heart was in the science from the beginning, and somehow I could not be happy sitting in the clinic and looking at patients.鈥

Being named an NAI Senior Member is 鈥渁 rewarding recognition鈥 that his choice to continue his research was correct. 鈥淚t is a culmination of 40 years of my research life,鈥 said Kishore, who believes that a passionate, purpose-oriented life is far superior to an ambitious, success-driven life.

This latest class of NAI Senior Members, the largest to date, demonstrates a shared commitment to celebrating the diversity of the academic ecosystem, with 48 outstanding female and/or minority academic inventors included. Hailing from 50 NAI member institutions and research universities across the nation, this impressive class are named inventors on more than 1,200 issued U.S. patents, with many of those being licensed and commercialized.

鈥淚鈥檓 delighted to see how this program has expanded in just a couple years鈥 time,鈥 said Paul R. Sanberg, FNAI, NAI president. 鈥淚t really reflects the shift we are seeing at universities where invention is not only being recognized but prioritized as well.鈥

The 2023 class of Senior Members will be celebrated at , Diversifying Innovation for a Strong Economy and a Sustainable Future, taking place June 25-27, 2023, in Washington, D.C.