Innovation Week, an annual celebration that promotes and recognizes innovation and research at UNMC and the University of Nebraska at Omaha, begins on Monday, Oct. 14.
Events include a kick-off event to meet UNeMed staff; an open house of local early-stage startup companies; a seminar about breakthrough HIV treatments from a world-renowned academic researcher; and a luncheon panel discussion.
Innovation Week opens Monday with a kickoff at the Durham Research Center Atrium at 9-11 a.m. The event will feature complimentary coffee and doughnuts, along with free UNeMed T-shirts and other giveaways. Guests are invited to meet with UNeMed staff and learn more about how UNeMed can help inventors develop their innovations.
UNeMed is the technology transfer and commercialization office for UNMC and UNO.
The week will be highlighted on Thursday, Oct. 17, at noon with a one-hour seminar from the world-renowned researcher and chemist, Dennis Liotta, Ph.D. He is the executive director for the Emory Institute for Drug Development, and he helped transform HIV/AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic but manageable infection. It is estimated that about 90 percent of all HIV-infected patients in the United States have taken one of the two drugs he invented. The title of his seminar, which is free and open to all: “Novel Therapeutics for Treating Viral Diseases, Cancers and Inflammatory Disorders.”
The seminar will be held in the DRC auditorium, beginning at noon. Pizza will be provided first-come, first-served. The event is open and free to everyone.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15, the university’s startup incubator, UNeTech, will host an open house. Beginning at 4 p.m., local entrepreneurs will demonstrate early-stage technologies that are the basis for new startup companies in healthcare-related industries. The open house will be held at UNeTech at 3929 Harney St.
On Wednesday, Oct. 16, Bio Nebraska will sponsor a luncheon and panel discussion that celebrates Nebraska women in STEM-science, technology, engineering and math. It will be held at 11 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Empire Room at Midtown Crossing in Omaha.
The week culminates Thursday evening with an awards program that specifically recognizes innovators and their work, conferring awards to those who have disclosed a new invention, were issued a United States patent, or had their technology licensed for further commercial development.
The awards program is invitation only.
Learn more about Innovation Week and UNeMed.