2015 Inductees

Henry Ford

2015 Inductees

Henry Ford

Henry Ford

Inventor and Businessman

1863 – 1947

273 U.S. Patents

Henry Ford revolutionized the way Americans travel and shaped the course of the 20th century. Like his friend and mentor, Thomas Edison, Ford was an innovator, transforming the automobile from a luxury item to a practical means of transportation. Henry Ford’s pioneering advancements in the automotive industry gave the average American the opportunity to travel freely. The explosive growth that followed led to the modern roadways and transportation systems that we know today.

A recipient of 273 patents, Ford not only revolutionized industrial manufacturing and production, but continued to improve upon his initial designs and explore new fields of automotive technology. Like Thomas Edison, Ford was a firm believer in finding natural solutions to industrial problems. Ford pioneered research in producing soybean plastics and finding new sources of natural rubber, and his quest for an American source of natural rubber led him to create two experimental rubber test sites in Florida, one of which—the Edison Botanic Research Corporation—was a collaborative effort with Thomas Edison and tire magnate Harvey Firestone. The groundbreaking work of the trio would lead to important botanical and chemical advancements, as well as aid passage of the Plant Patent Act of 1930 through Congress. Today, the Edison Botanic Research Corporation Laboratory, located in Fort Myers, has been designated a National Historic Chemical Landmark, the first such location in Florida.

Ford also conducted aeronautical research in Florida. Ford pilots flew several early Ford-manufactured aircraft in the state. Several Ford commercial aircraft were named after prominent Florida cities, including Miss Fort Myers. In addition, early experimental work on the highly secretive V-8 engine was also conducted in Florida, according to employees engaged in the project.

Florida remembers Henry Ford’s contributions to science via the Edison Botanic Research Corporation Laboratory and the Mangoes, winter home of Henry Ford, both located in Fort Myers. Ford’s legacy of innovation and keen interest in research and education continue to inspire new generations.

Robert Howard Grubbs

2015 Inductees

Robert Grubbs

Robert Howard Grubbs, Ph.D.

2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry California Institute of Technology
Graduate, University of Florida

230 U.S. Patents

Dr. Robert Howard Grubbs received his B.S. in chemistry in 1963 and M.S. in 1965, from the University of Florida in Gainesville. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University. From 1968-1969 he was a National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow in chemistry at Stanford University. He was at Michigan State University from 1969 to 1978, achieving the rank of associate professor. He is the Victor and Elizabeth Atkins Professor of Chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, where he has been a faculty member since 1978.

The Grubbs group discovers new catalysts and studies their fundamental chemistry and applications. Catalysts facilitate the transformation of organic molecules and are used widely in industry and academia for the preparation of important organic compounds and polymers. A family of catalysts for the interconversion of olefins, the olefin metathesis reaction was discovered in the Grubbs laboratory. In addition to their broad usage in academic research, these catalysts are now used commercially to prepare new pharmaceuticals, to create composites for structural applications, and to convert biorenewable carbon sources into fuels and commodity chemicals. Catalysts for other useful transformations are also being developed and studied in detail.

His more recent awards have included the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (2005), Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2000), Pauling Award Medal (2003), Havinga Medal (2006) (Leiden University), Golden Plate Award (2006) (Academy of Achievement), Gold Medal of the American Institute of Chemists, Chemical Heritage Foundation (2010), and Giulio Natta Award for Chemistry (2014), as well as eight American Chemical Society honors, including the Award in Polymer Chemistry (1995), Arthur C. Cope Award (2002), Award for Creative Invention (2009), and Roger Adams Award in Organic Chemistry (2011). He has been elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences (1989), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1994), an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2005), a fellow of the American Chemical Society (2009), a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2013), and a member of the National Academy of Engineering (2015). He has been awarded many honorary degrees, most recently a DSc from the University of Warwick, Coventry, in 2010; an Honoris Causa Doctorate, Universidad de Huelva, Spain, in 2012; and an RWTH Aachen University Honorary Doctorate (Dr. rer.nat.h.c.), in 2013; and he was Commencement Speaker at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia, in 2013. He has over 580 publications and 230 U.S. patents based on his research.

Robert Holton

2015 Inductees

Robert Holton

Robert Holton, Ph.D.

Matthew Suffness Professor of Chemistry
Florida State University

132 U.S. Patents

Dr. Robert Holton, whose research focuses on the synthesis of complex organic molecules, is a leader in the field of synthetic chemistry. Holton is most often recognized for being the first to synthesize Taxol, a powerful and widely used cancer-fighting agent. Over his career, his work on taxane natural products has led to significant advancements in cancer research and treatment. Besides Taxol, Holton was able to synthesize a range of natural products. Most notable are Prostaglandin F2a, a naturally occurring prostaglandin used in medicine to induce labor; Narwedine, an important chemical reaction compound; Aphidicolin, an antibiotic with antiviral and antimitotical properties; Taxusin; and Hemibrevitoxin.

Holton began his academic career as an undergraduate at the University of North Carolina and later received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Florida State University. After holding positions at Stanford University, Purdue University, and Virginia Tech, he eventually returned to Florida State in 1985 to teach and conduct research. In 1997, Holton co-founded Taxolog, Inc., along with his colleague Lewis Metts. For more than a decade, Taxolog continued to develop and commercialize unique drugs based on taxanes for the treatment of cancer and other diseases. Today, Holton is the Matthew Suffness Professor of Chemistry at FSU, where his research group continues to study the synthesis of taxane natural products and their application to cancer treatment.

Holton holds over 125 issued U.S. patents. His accomplishments are a testament to his dedication to science and medicine. His Taxol was the top selling anti-cancer drug in 1995 and generated over $1.6 billion in revenues by the end of the decade. In addition, Taxol generated the largest patent payout in history for a single university (FSU).

Jerry Pratt

2015 Inductees

Jerry Pratt

Jerry Pratt, Ph.D.

Research Scientist
Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition

16 U.S. Patents

Dr. Jerry Pratt leads a research group at the Florida Institute for Human & Machine Cognition (IHMC) that concentrates on understanding and modeling human gait and applying that knowledge to the fields of robotics, human assistive devices, and man-machine interfaces. Current projects include humanoid avatar robots for co-exploration of hazardous environments, fast and efficient biologically-inspired running robots, and exoskeletons for restoration of gait in paralyzed individuals.

Pratt is a recognized expert in bipedal walking, with his algorithms used in various robots around the world. In particular, he holds several patents on algorithms for humanoid robots to recover their balance after being pushed, even when available footholds are sparse. In 2015, Pratt and his IHMC team placed second out of 23 world-wide teams in the DARPA Robotics Challenge and placed first among humanoid robots that primarily walk bipedally.

Pratt’s teams’ approach of maximizing speed, agility, and biological similarity through the understanding of biological counterparts is helping to remove the stereotype of robots as clunky, jerky-moving machines. Recent work on fast running robots has resulted in ostrich-inspired running models and robot prototypes that are currently believed to be the fastest running robots in the world.

Pratt was involved in pioneering work as an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he designed early prototypes of computer network interface cards and motion tracking systems. As a graduate student, he developed one of the first bipedal robots that could compliantly walk over rough terrain. After graduation, Pratt and colleagues founded a small company, where they invented the RoboKnee, one of the first exoskeletons that increased human strength and endurance, and the IntelligentPatientLift, which allows for caregivers to directly lift patients, rather than requiring operation through a control pendant.

Pratt has always been a tinkerer. While a teen, he wrote a drawing and painting program before they were commercially avail-able and built several robots. As a high school senior, he invented the “Knock-Out Keyless Door Lock,” a lock which requires one to knock a user-programmable code on a door in order to unlock it. This invention won first place in the 1990 NSTA Design a Duracell Device Scholarship Competition.

Pratt lives in Pensacola with wife Megan and children Ben and Annie. The Pratts co-founded the Pensacola MESS (Math Engineering Science and Stuff) Hall, a hands-on science museum, featuring its signature “Mess Kits,” innovative hands-on science experiments for all ages.

Paul R. Sanberg

2015 Inductees

Paul Sanberg

Paul R. Sanberg, Ph.D., D.Sc.

Founder and President, National Academy of Inventors
Executive Director, Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair
Distinguished University Professor
University of South Florida

54 U.S. Patents

Neuroscientist Dr. Paul R. Sanberg’s work has been instrumental in understanding and developing new pharmaceutical and cellular therapeutics for stroke, Alzheimer’s, ALS, Huntington’s, Parkinson’s disease and Tourette syndrome. His research has involved discovering innovative ways to repair the damaged brain and has helped lead the team that demonstrated the use of umbilical cord blood-derived cells for neurological disease. He holds 163 U.S. and foreign patents.

Sanberg trained at York University, University of British Columbia, Australian National University and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and held faculty appointments at the University of Cincinnati and Brown University, among others, prior to joining the University of South Florida as a professor in 1992. He was a long time member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health and has served on numerous scientific advisory boards for health-related foundations and companies. He has industry experience as a founder or director of a number of companies involved in cell therapy for degenerative disorders. He is the author of more than 680 articles and 14 books, with over 33,000 citations to his published work, has served on editorial boards for more than 30 scientific journals, and is editor-in-chief of Technology and Innovation: Journal of the National Academy of Inventors.

Sanberg is president and a Charter Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is the 2015 Medalist of the Florida Academy of Sciences; a Fulbright Specialist; fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and Royal Societies of Chemistry, Public Health and Medicine; and AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador. He serves on the nomination evaluation committee of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation with the U.S. Department of Commerce, Smithsonian Innovation Festival selection committee, and advisory board of the APLU Commission on Innovation, Competitiveness, and Economic Prosperity.

Nan-Yao Su

2015 Inductees

Nan-Yao Su

Nan-Yao Su, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor of Entomology
Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center University of Florida

13 U.S. Patents

Dr. Nan-Yao Su is one of the world’s leading authorities on subterranean termites and their management. Along with colleagues at Dow AgroSciences, he developed a revolutionary approach for protecting homes and other buildings from these wood-consuming insects, the Sentricon® termite colony elimination system.

For much of the 20th century, the standard treatment for subterranean termites involved application of liquid insecticide to soil around the exterior of a building. This method was not environmentally sustainable and not always successful at stopping infestations because it only killed termites in the treated area. Subterranean termites can travel hundreds of feet from their nests to forage.

Beginning in the late 1980s, Su and Dow scientists pioneered a safe, effective new approach to termite management, using a slow-acting compound called hexaflumuron. It kills termites by interfering with their molting process. The team incorporated hexaflumuron into a bait that could be placed underground in feeding stations. Foraging termites would feed on the bait and carry portions back to the nest to share with other members of the colony. This was a key advantage because it meant the bait could reach the majority of termite workers and potentially destroy the colony. Hexaflumuron is harmless to people and pets and poses no threat to other insect species when properly used.

In 1995, the Sentricon® system became commercially available. Since then, it has been used in 18 countries, protected more than 3 million homes, and saved more than 9,000 metric tons of insecticide that would have been applied otherwise. Su has used the system to protect historic landmarks including the Statue of Liberty, and has helped fight large-scale termite infestations in New Orleans and in other countries including Chile, China, New Zealand, and Vietnam.

To honor his accomplishments with Sentricon®, Su has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has authored and co-authored more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on termite biology and management.

He received a B.S. in 1975 and an M.S. in 1977 from Kyoto Institute of Technology and a doctorate in entomology from the University of Hawaii in 1982. Su has been with the University of Florida since 1984 and works at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center.

Su has received 11 U.S. patents and continues to develop innovations to make the Sentricon® system more practical, effective, and affordable.

Janet Yamamoto

2015 Inductees

Janet Yamamoto

Janet Yamamoto, Ph.D.

Professor
College of Veterinary Medicine
University of Florida

23 U.S. Patents

Dr. Janet K. Yamamoto is a professor of retroviral immunology in UF Veterinary Medicine’s department of infectious diseases and pathology. She received her Ph.D. in microbiology, with a focus in immunology, from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. In 1984, she established the HIV/AIDS BSL3 laboratory under the joint directive of the Schools of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine at the University of California Davis, which was later awarded Center for AIDS Research funds for the northern California region from NIH.

Yamamoto, together with Nobel laureate Dr. Francoise Barré-Sinoussi, was the first to demonstrate and publish that interferon-gamma will not protect against HIV-1, and she has served as the consultant for the second FDA-approved HIV-1 Western blot for HIV-1 confirmatory test. Yamamoto co-discovered, characterized, and co-patented feline interferon-omega which was commercially released in Europe and recently in the U.S. as a supplemental therapy against viral diseases of cats. As a part of the world effort to discover a small animal model for HIV/AIDS, in 1986 she co-discovered the feline immunodeficiency virus, FIV, the feline counterpart of HIV. She also invented the first commercial FIV vaccine, sold by Pfizer-Zoetis and Boehringer.

Yamamoto’s laboratory has studied the immune mechanisms of protection conferred by her FIV vaccine and determined that the major portion of this vaccine protection against global FIV isolates is mediated by anti-FIV T-cell immunity rather than by anti-body immunity. Her team has also discovered that AIDS viruses such as FIV and HIV-1 carry, as part of their structural proteins and enzymes, protein pieces called epitopes that enhance viral infection, whereas other epitopes may inhibit infection. Her laboratory is currently selecting anti-AIDS viral T-cell epitopes that are conserved among FIV, SIV and HIV-1 to minimize mutational affect and to broaden protective efficacy. Since these epitopes are conserved between FIV and HIV-1, the FIV sequences of such epitopes have been formulated as synthetic peptides and tested against FIV in laboratory cats. A pilot study showed a promising result with only a few T-cell epitopes, and currently a major trial using a large number of T-cell epitopes is ongoing. If successful, the HIV counterpart epitopes will be used to develop an effective T-cell-based HIV vaccine for humans. When used in combination with antiretroviral drugs, these vaccines have the potential to cure HIV and FIV infections in HIV-positive humans and infected cats, respectively.

Yamamoto holds 23 U.S. and 14 foreign patents and donates all of her personal patent royalty and licensing income to her research.