Mizzou Technology Advancement team assists local inventors with the complex process. 

The Missouri Innovation Center (MIC) at the University of Missouri generated $18.6 million in licensing income last year. With the help of the Mizzou Technology Advancement team, sixteen U.S. patents were filed, as well as 113 new inventions disclosed by the end of 2023.   

A few of the U.S. patents — for inventions with technical explanations beyond the average understanding — issued in 2023 include:  

• A drinking container with different temperature zones, invented by Bill Ma. The drinking container uses phase-change materials to rapidly cool and maintain liquids at drinkable temperatures.   

• Compositions for the treatment of drug-resistant tumors and methods of use, invented by Raghuraman Kannan, Dhananjay Suresh, Soumavo Mukherjee, Ajit Prakash Zambre, and Anandhi Upendran. The methods detect and treat tumors resistant to tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) using gelatin nanoparticles loaded with siRNAs (small interfering RNAs) and TKIs.  

• Ayurvedic encapsulated gold nanoparticles, fabrication methods and cancer therapeutic methods, invented by Kattesh V. Katti, Menka Khoobchandani, Kavita K. Katti, and Aslam Khan. Plant extracts conjugated to gold nanoparticles using green nanotechnology create cancer therapies consistent with the principles of Ayrvedic-holistic medicine.  

• Inhibitor-functionalized ultrasmall nanoparticles and methods, invented by Thomas P. Quinn. The nanoparticles with conjugated antibody fragments are joined to a chemotherapeutic drug for improved targeting of cancer.  

• Engineered comestible meat, invented by Gabor Forgacs, Francoise Marga, and Karoly Robert Jakab. This method of forming animal muscle either with a bioprinter or other assembly process, produces a food product rich in animal protein.  

Quinten Messbarger, president and CEO of MIC, is eager to shine a light on the innovation center’s work, and he’s equally passionate about describing the process.  

“The patent process begins with the inventor having the idea. You patent something that’s new and novel and has been reduced to practice,” Messbarger added. “You just can’t patent an idea. You have to demonstrate that it has use, and that it’s novel. There are a lot of hoops you have to think about and you’re always going to be engaging a patent attorney.”  

The complexity requires the expertise of an attorney for both practical and legal reasons.  

“It’s a big legal kind of thing and if you don’t do it right, you think you have protection, but you don’t,” he said.   

A patent gives an inventor the right to prevent others from making, using, selling, or importing their invention for a set period of time. Fundamentally, a patent is all about its tradeoff. The government is willing to give the inventor a twenty-year monopoly per patent. If an inventor divulges what they have and how it works with the trade-off, they can obtain a twenty-year monopoly to make their money and get their return, Messbarger explained. Then after twenty years, society benefits because it is off-patent and anyone can do it.  

“It’s supposed to be a win-win and one of the few ways that an inventor can protect what they’re attempting to achieve,” he added. “The challenge with our world here, with high growth life science companies, it can take millions, if not tens of millions of dollars to develop a product. No one will invest that kind of money if they don’t have a way to get their money back. If you don’t have a patent and a way to keep other people from copying what you’re doing, you spend five, ten years developing something tens or twenties of millions of developing something, and then someone for ten bucks copies it.”  

The bottom line is this: It’s about the bottom line.  

“The reason people are willing to invest in these kinds of things, like new drugs, or medical devices or whatever, is because you can get that protection,” he said. “Investors have a reason to believe they can get a return on their investment.”   

There are two different “flavors” of patents — a provisional patent and a nonprovisional patent. The provisional patent is the most common, which is essentially a timestamp for the next year, allowing the inventor that allotted time to put together a sound nonprovisional patent. The provisional patent buys the inventor a one-year period.  

Messbarger noted that for five to six thousand dollars, the inventor gets that one year, and hopefully, in that year, they can work on improving the product. They can work on their market research, test the market, and create some prototypes. If they decide to move forward within that year, it is time for the nonprovisional patent to be filed, which gives the inventor twenty years to make a profit and for investors to get their returns.   

“You can go directly to a non-provisional, but patents are expensive,” he said. “With the provisional patent, you’re going to spend at least five thousand dollars, maybe as much as ten and a nonprovisional full patent could be twenty to fifty thousand. So, especially if you’re a startup, the notion of coming up with fifty thousand dollars early on, before you’ve maybe even got everything figured out, just isn’t workable, which is why you have the provisional patent.”   

Some of the patents that have become successful with the help of the MIC include:  

DynaMed  

Dr. Brian Alper  

As a medical student at MU, Alper created a database as a hobby. He understood, as a learning physician, there was no way he was going to be able to remember everything. He created a functioning database, similar to what AI would be now. It is a resource physicians can always go to for looking up evidence-based medicine research to give the best answer when treating patients. He took his invention to MIC when he wanted to move it from a hobby to a business. MIC helped him grow and develop until it was acquired by EBSCO, the world’s largest medical publisher. Physicians all around the world use this tool now.   

Equinosis  

Dr. Kevin Keegan  

As a professor of equine surgery at MU, Keegan, along with engineers led by professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Dr. Frank Pai, developed algorithms for the specific purpose of determining a horse’s lameness using a highspeed camera and a treadmill-based system. A trained veterinarian can only accurately diagnose a horse’s lameness 50 percent of the time. This system has now become the standard.   

Elemental Enzymes  

Dr. Brian Thompson, Dr. Katie Thompson, and Dr. Ashley Siegel  

Two postdoctoral research students — husband and wife — came to MIC with a platform technology that can create enzymes that are much more robust. Their first commercial project was a coating that goes on seeds and allows plants to produce 5 to 7 percent more. The enzyme is now on billions of seeds, creating higher crop yields. And it is not considered toxic or a pollutant.  

Recently, Elemental Enzymes attained approval for a citrus greening solution. In the south U.S., where most of the citrus trees are grown, there is a disease called citrus greening.  

“They are fundamentally, in my opinion, saving the citrus industry,” Messbarger said. Elemental Enzymes has an office at MIC and is headquartered in St. Louis, with offices in Florida and Australia.  

MIC operates and manages the 33,000 square foot MU Life Science Business Incubator at 1601 S. Providence on the MU campus. The facility features wet laboratories, shared lab equipment and facilities, private and shared offices, conference room spaces, and other resources designed to support start-up and early-stage life science ventures.  

“Entrepreneurs need to understand that here in Columbia, there is a lot of help. We have an amazing community of entrepreneurial support organizations that can help almost anyone,” Messbarger noted. “If someone’s got a great idea, don’t be afraid to explore it.”  

MIC is a 501c3 nonprofit and is now in its fortieth year.  

“I’ve been doing it thirty years,” he said, “because it’s gratifying to help all these super smart folks solve these problems.”