2021 IDEAs Award Winners Give Hope for Stroke and Heart Attack Victims

October 6, 2021

Recent UAF biomedical research found that drugs may be used to control the metabolic rate in humans after cardiac arrest and stroke to improve survival and neurological outcomes. This groundbreaking research won the 2021 top IDEAs award. 

The Innovative Disclosures and Entrepreneurial Activities (IDEAs) awards, hosted by the UAF Office of Intellectual Property and Commercialization, recognize innovative solutions from  invention disclosures submitted from UAF and UAS for the academic year.

Researchers Kelly Drew and Bernard Laughlin of UAF’s Institute of Arctic Biology and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry won the award for their disclosure entitled “Anticholinergic Formulation and Method.”

In critical care medicine, patients are exposed to cold during targeted temperature management, now the general standard of care following cardiac arrest. However, exposure to cold stimulates metabolism and interferes with the therapeutic efficacy of targeted temperature management.

The inventors have discovered unexpected synergism by utilizing pharmaceutical formulations including three drug classes. The combination of the three drug classes show synergy in their effects on metabolic rate, heart rate, and blood pressure, to allow for more precise control of metabolic rate and core body temperature.

This innovation has been submitted as a U.S. provisional patent application through OIPC. The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health.

The IDEAs award winners were announced during an in-person and virtual September 28 ICE Jam innovation and entrepreneurship event in partnership with UAF Climate Scholars Program and Honors College. All IDEAs winners were recognized for their disclosed innovative approaches to research, teaching and service. The winners highlighted the diversity of disclosed innovations during the past academic year, 2020-2021.

This yearʼs winners are:

• Commercialization Award (best overall innovation): Kelly Drew and Dr. Bernard Laughlin; “Anticholinergic Formulation and Method”
• Inspiration Award (best faculty innovation): Geoffrey Wheat; “Borehole Sampler with SMA Trigger”
• Creative Award (best staff innovation): Gabriel Dunham; “Hydrostatic Fuel Vent”
• Tomorrow's Innovator Award (best graduate/postdoc innovation): John Harley; “Social Vulnerability Indices for Alaska Block Groups”
• Young Innovator Award (best undergraduate innovation): Russell Buckholz, Jason Gresehover, Michaela Jackson, Uziel Perez, and Cate Whiting: “Dynamic Arctic Wastewater Connection and Testing Rig”

Next yearʼs competition is already underway, so enter here.