Ohio State celebrates the impact of research and innovation

Co-hosted by the Office of Research and the Corporate Engagement Office, the 3rd annual Research and Innovation Showcase was held virtually on April 15. The event provided an opportunity to hear directly from senior leadership about research and innovation achievements as well as plans for the enterprise moving forward. Researchers shared inspiring spotlight talks, and the event culminated in the awarding of Ohio State’s Innovators of the Year.

The event provided an opportunity for Grace Wang, the new executive vice president for research, innovation and knowledge, to provide a vision for the enterprise moving forward. "We want to support you to unleash your creativity and imagination as a research community," Wang said to researchers.

Peixuan Guo, the Sylvan Frank Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery and the director of the College of Pharmacy Center for RNA Nanotechnology and Nanomedicine, is The Ohio State University 2021 Innovator of the Year. Guo is a pioneer of RNA nanotechnology, developing RNA particles that target tumors. His work has led to several discoveries: the RNA rubbery property that leads to more efficient cancer targeting without toxicity, novel methods for lung and liver cancer therapies, and a simple and fast method for diagnosing COVID-19 earlier in infection. Other finalists for Innovator of the Year were the College of Engineering's Judit Puskas, the College of Veterinary Medicine team of Jianrong Li and Stefan Niewiesk and the College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences' Renukaradhya Gourapura.

The Early Career Innovator of the Year is Abraham Badu-Tawiah, whose research focuses on accelerated droplet chemistry, which allows fast reactivity for disease detection and analytical applications. Finalists for the Early Career award were David Hoelzle from the College of Engineering and Mark Mitton-Fry from the College of Pharmacy. The College of Medicine's Jenny Barker and The College of Arts and Sciences Caroline Karbowski shared the Next Generation of the Year award. Matthew Trotta from the Fisher College of Business was also a finalist. 

Also recognized were faculty that achieved commercialization milestones during 2020, including 75 that had technologies patented; 40 that had technologies licensed; and 23 with technology that was the basis for a new startup. 

The event featured a dose of inspiration in the form of short talks from three Ohio State researchers: Julianna Nemeth from the College of Public Health; Daniel Shanahan from the College of Arts and Sciences and Sylvester Black from the College of Medicine.