Nancy Allbritton, a Kenan distinguished professor and chair of the joint department of biomedical engineering in UNC’s College of Arts & Sciences and North Carolina State University, has been honored as the 2017 Inventor of the Year at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Allbritton has co-founded four startup companies and holds 11 patents, with eight more pending. Her academic research has resulted in technological advancements that addresses unmet needs in biomedical applications such as cell sorting, cell cloning, organ-on-a-chip platforms and cell signaling evaluation.
The latest pursuit in her wide range of research and commercial interests is launching a new UNC-based company called Altis Biosystems. This venture has developed a patent-pending stem cell technology, recreating the human intestinal epithelium for compound screening and microbiome research. The goal is to make drug discovery faster, cheaper and safer and to reduce the need for animal testing.
Finding the simplest, most effective and customer-friendly approach to the science is a fundamental part of Allbritton’s success commercializing research. She also emphasizes the concept of teamwork.
“It’s always a team effort. There’s no way you’re doing any of this by yourself, period,” she says. “We’re getting a lot of help from a lot of places – from the State of North Carolina and UNC. There are a lot of people who gave us advice.”
Allbritton was honored this spring during the annual Celebration of Inventorship event hosted by the office of commercialization and economic development in the vice chancellor’s office of innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development.
