Former CCEW Inventors
Spring of 2008 Inventors
James F. McGinnis
James F. McGinnis received his Bachelor of Science in biology and chemistry from Siena College and Ph.D. from SUNY at Buffalo. After his postdoctoral training in molecular neurobiology at UCLA, he obtained Professorial appointments in the Departments of Neurobiology and Psychiatry.
McGinnis came to Oklahoma in 1997 as a Professor in the Departments of Cell Biology and Ophthalmology at Oklahoma University Health Sciences Center with his laboratory at the Dean A. McGee Eye Institute.
McGinnis's research program is focused on retinal function. A major project focus in his lab is the characterization and use of catalytic antioxidant inorganic nanoparticles to prevent oxidative stress-induced neuronal cell death in mammalian retinas and brains. His research is currently supported by NIH, NSF, OCAST and private foundations.
Edgar O'Rear III
Edgar A. O'Rear is the Francis W. Winn Professor of Chemical, Biological and Materials Engineering at the University of Oklahoma and director of the OU Bioengineering Center.
His principal areas of research are surfactant science and biomedical engineering. In the field of surfactants, O'Rear focuses on modifying the surfaces of commercially important materials and exploring the technique as a means of forming unusual polymers. His biomedical engineering work involves investigating the dissolution of blood clots by plasminogen activators, which is important in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction and other cardiovascular disorders.
O'Rear has served as a program administrator at the National Science Foundation, taught multiple times at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand, and conducted research at The Institute for Physical and Chemical Research and Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, both in Japan. He holds a doctorate from Rice University.
Doris Benbrook
The much lesser known but life-threatening Polycystic Kidney Disease – manifested by multiple cysts on the kidneys that grow and multiply over time, ultimately causing renal shut-down – strikes more than 600,000 Americans and an estimated 12.5 million people worldwide. Currently, dialysis and transplantation currently are the only forms of treatment.
Doris Benbrook, professor and director of research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the OU Health Sciences Center, leads a team of scientists that has developed a synthetic Vitamin A retinoid compound that induces potent apoptosis, a natural form of cell suicide in cancer cells, but that, unlike current cancer therapies, is not toxic to healthy cells.
