LOS ANGELES, CA - March 7, 2012 – The USCStevens Institute for Innovation today announced that six innovative ideas have advanced through phase I of the Ideas Empowered Program and have received $498,700 to advance their high impact research to the next stage of development and investment.

Makucell, Inc., a new life science company that utilizes an innovative proprietary regenerative medicine technology to address aging skin, hair and nail conditions, has presented important pre-clinical and clinical information on its proprietary molecule, Asymmtate, at the 36th Annual Hawaii Dermatology Seminar, Waikoloa, Hawaii. Asymmtate™ is the active key ingredient in Makucell’s new topical skin care line Renewnt™ (pronounced “Re-new-int”).

Led by Caltech, FLoW is a consortium of universities that is running the western region of the Department of Energy’s $2 million National Clean Energy Business Plan Competition. FLoW offers $200,000 in prizes and more importantly, experienced mentors, legal start-up packages and the opportunity to pitch to investors ready to take action and work with these teams. Winning teams from six regions across the country also get the chance to participate in the National Competition in Washington D.C., June 2012.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation today announced a new report titled Universities in Innovation Networks: The Role and Future Promise of University Research in U.S. Science and Economic Policymaking by USC Vice Provost for Innovation Krisztina “Z” Holly. This is the fourth report in a series on U.S. science and economic competitiveness from the Doing What Works and Science Progress projects at the Center for American Progress.

The University of Southern California announced today that a partnership led by Caltech, and supported by USC and UCLA, has been selected to receive a $360,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop a national business plan competition for young cleantech entrepreneurs. The winning proposal is one of six awarded regionally as part of a three-year, $2 million program, funded by the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) to develop competitions that inspire students to come up with innovative business plans involving clean-energy technology.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation today announced the appointment of Dr. Karen Kerr as Senior Director, New Ventures and Alliances. In her new role, Kerr leads a growing team that will actively pursue startup opportunities from USC discoveries and expertise while coordinating with resources on and off campus to create an environment at USC and beyond that is conducive to new ventures.

USC focuses on participating in regional innovation clusters, partnering with existing companies to commercialize federally funded research, nurturing startups, attracting and motivating commercialization talent, and educating and training a world-class workforce.

trueRSVP launched its new, highly-efficient online event planning service, trueRSVP.com, at the DEMO Fall 2011 Conference in Santa Clara, California. The website uses proprietary algorithms to increase the accuracy of RSVPs, making the process of event planning easier.

The USC - Johnson & Johnson Translational Innovation Partnership Program seeks to further groundbreaking research in a wide range of therapeutic areas and will showcase emerging technologies or innovations with high potential for impact in life sciences.

USC one of only two universities in the world with multiple names among world’s top innovators.

Lotus Tissue Repair Developing Proprietary Technology as Therapy for Dystrophic Epidermolysis Bullosa and Other Chronic Wound Healing Indications

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation is pleased to announce the release of Aram Sinnreich’s TEDxUSC talk, launching a worldwide effort to create the next generation version of the internet – MondoNet.

The University of Southern California, the California Institute of Technology, and SFC Energy, Inc. today announced the execution of a license to an extensive portfolio of U.S. patents for direct methanol fuel cell technology (DMFC). The nonexclusive license to the universities’ patents will facilitate SFC Energy, Inc.’s expansion of its methanol fuel cell products into the U.S. market.

The USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Keck School of Medicine of USC, the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, and the Los Angeles Basin Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) have been selected to participate in the exclusive Coulter Translational Research Partnership Program.

The University of Southern California’s Stevens Institute for Innovation, a university-wide resource that helps USC innovators make maximum impact beyond traditional academic means, today announced it will award $439,000 in gap funding for seven breakthrough USC innovations that have a high potential to spin out within a year or two.

OnGreen, the leading online marketplace for clean tech investment, announced today it has entered into a marketing partnership with the University of Southern California’s Stevens Institute for Innovation (USC Stevens) to include USC’s patented technologies with potential clean tech applications and commercialization on its website. OnGreen will host USC’s patents on OGPX, its Patent Exchange platform. OnGreen received non-exclusive rights to assist in marketing USC’s cleantech-related patents worldwide.

The Social Innovation Fast Pitch was established to support the social entrepreneurs who tackle some of the Los Angeles area's toughest social and community problems, making an important contribution to the innovative, vibrant culture in the Los Angeles area.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation announced a new executive team, demonstrating USC's commitment to speeding up the transition of new ideas to market for societal impact. The new structure focuses on business development, translating technologies into practical application, and encouraging the private sector to work with USC.

The University of Southern California today announced the launch of the USC “Ideas Empowered” program, a new two-year pilot program managed by the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation designed to bridge the gap between ideas and the marketplace, and to support the hand-on participation of students in that process. The Ideas Empowered program will help identify the most exciting and game-changing ideas arising from research at USC, reduce the development and investment risks around these promising early discoveries, and bring together the elements necessary to translate the discoveries to the market.

What do a world-renowned cancer researcher, a GRAMMY- award winning musician, an astronaut, a robotics engineer, a cognitive neuroscientist, an experimental violinist and a linguistic expert have in common? For one, each has an idea worth sharing that will dramatically change the way we live, work and play. And for another, each has a home at the TEDxUSC “Ideas Empowered” conference, taking place on April 13, 2010, at the University of Southern California (USC).

ICAP Ocean Tomo, the intellectual property brokerage division of ICAP, will be hosting a Live Auction on March 25th, 2010 in San Francisco. In conjunction with the University of Southern California Shoah Foundation Institute, ICAP Ocean Tomo will auction off an exclusive license to an intellectual property portfolio containing 11 issued United States Patents.

The University of Southern California today announced that two faculty members from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering have been recognized by Technology Review magazine as some of the world's top innovators under the age of 35. Andrea Armani, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, and Ellis Meng, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, will both appear on the prestigious 2009 TR35 list.

Alan Epstein, M.D., Ph.D., Professor, Department of Pathology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has received approval for a $3.5 million drug development project through the Rapid Access to Intervention Development (RAID) program of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) for his breakthrough Interleukin-2 (IL-2) cytokine immunotherapy analog.   This is the second RAID award Dr. Epstein has received from the National Cancer Institute.

The University of Southern California (USC) and Nokia Research Center (NRC) Hollywood today announced a research collaboration framework agreement that centers on advanced mobile user experiences. The umbrella framework agreement allows Nokia and USC to work together on multiple projects in a variety of areas and will streamline the process for commercializing USC inventions. 

In a move that demonstrates the USC’s deep commitment to advancing breakthrough ideas in the life sciences, the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation appointed industry veteran Dr. Richard Hull to Senior Director of Innovation Advancement and Business Development for the USC Stevens Institute Health Sciences Campus office.

USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering, Rossier School of Education, and the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation Partner to Address Math and Science Education to Sustain US Competitiveness in a Global Market

Project:Possibility held its Semester Project on April 30 at the University of Southern California to showcase the open source software aimed at making a beneficial impact on the disabled community.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation prepares to host the first annual USC Student Innovator Showcase and Competition, Thursday, October 11, 2007, during Trojan Parents Weekend.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation is pioneering a new approach it innovation university-wide. Today, USC Stevens hosted the first annual USC Student Innovator Showcase hosting over thirty presentations and reaching over 200 hundred students across the University.

The USC Stevens Institute for Innovation announces the winners of their curriculum grant fund, Innovation Inside.

Providence Pictures, an Emmy award-winning production company, licensed and used USC Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) in a new NOVA documentary entitled, Secrets of the Parthenon. 

The University of Southern California announced a landmark licensing agreement today, enabling UOP, a Honeywell company, and USC to collaboratively develop an improved methanol and dimethyl ether production process and a large-scale industrial recycling of carbon dioxide generating methanol and tradable carbon credits at the same time.

In a move that demonstrates the University of Southern California's strengthened commitment to advancing breakthrough research in the biosciences, the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation announced today the opening of an office in the new Harlyne Norris Tower at USC's Health Sciences Campus (HSC).

Aguru Images, Inc. announced today that it has licensed Light Stage and Linear Light Source technologies developed at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (USC ICT).

America's universities are the principal source of the basic research that expands the frontiers of knowledge and produces discoveries that enhance our national security, strengthen our economic competitiveness, and enrich the lives of our citizens.  USC, as a leading U.S. research institution, is committed to these missions.

Abraxis BioScience, Inc. (NASDAQ:ABBI), an integrated, global biopharmaceutical company, today announced an agreement with the University of Southern California (USC) that provides Abraxis with the exclusive worldwide development and commercialization rights for an intellectual property portfolio of diagnostic protein biomarkers for therapy response, therapy toxicity and disease recurrence in colorectal cancers (CRCs).

During a day long celebration of innovation at the University of Southern California, USC President Steven B. Sample announced the strategic plan, mission and vision for the newly-named USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, the university's bold, new approach to harness and advance breakthrough research and innovation for societal impact.

Joseph Koepnick former CEO of Stanford spinout Staccato Systems Inc. and longtime senior licensing associate at Stanford's office of technology licensing, has joined the USC Stevens Institute for Technology Commercialization as director of licensing. He will oversee intellectual property licensing throughout USC.

Krisztina Holly, formerly executive director of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a veteran of successful technology start-ups, has been named executive director of USC Stevens. 

Entretech (www.entretech.org), a leading business development organization supporting high technology companies throughout Greater Los Angeles, announced the appointment of two new board members, Krisztina Holly, Vice Provost and Executive Director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, and Kathryn A. Atchison, Vice Provost of Intellectual Property and Industry Relations, and Associate Vice Chancellor for Research at UCLA.  Holly and Atchison join 10 other Board members deeply rooted in the local business and technology communities, including Fred Farina, who represents the Office of Technology Transfer at Caltech.