Lookin' at U: Catherine Murari-Kanti

Each Thursday, we randomly feature a medical center employee. This week, we learn more about:

Name: Catherine Murari-Kanti
Hometown: Bombay, India (I don’t like the new name of Mumbai)
Number of years at UNMC: Eight years

Tell us a bit about what you do here at UNMC.
I work as a licensing associate at UNeMed, the technology transfer office of UNMC. I find ways to educate, protect and commercialize new discoveries made at UNMC. If you ever think that you found an exciting solution to a problem, could be a medical device, surgical or research tools, software, apps and, of course, research discoveries, please feel free to contact me.

Accountability is one of UNMC’s ITEACH values. Tell us of a time you witnessed a person or group at UNMC exhibit this value.
At UNeMed, we have a 30-day window for us to evaluate an invention that comes to us. I believe this keeps me and us as a team accountable to the inventor, the money spent doing the research and to the university as a whole. Invention evaluation allows us to decide if a particular invention is novel and if it can be protected or marketed.

Another instance refers to my late P.I., Michael Brattain, Ph.D., who would constantly remind me and the lab that even non-exciting research data was still data, and it still tells a story. Keeping all data points in the story allowed us to be accountable to each other and to the scientific community as a whole.

What is your favorite spring activity?
Every spring since I came to the U.S. in 2007, I would gawk at people’s lush lawns and admire the different colored flowers blooming all over the place. So this spring, since we just bought a house, will include lots of lawn maintenance and planting a flower and, hopefully, a vegetable bed.

List three things people may not know about you.

I survived a bomb blast by about 20 minutes.
I survived a deluge; walking through neck high water for hours and eventually crashing at a friend’s place far away from home. Five thousand people lost their lives that night.
I fell between the train and platform and survived. I don’t have pictures to show but it all worked out! I am OK, Dad!

See a theme here? There is no doubt that there is a reason I am alive, and I strive to find purpose in everyday that I am alive!