Timothy M. Block, PhD, President of Hepatitis B Foundation and its Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, named a 2017 National Academy of Inventors Fellow
Timothy M. Block, Ph.D, has been named a Fellow of the US National Academy of Inventors (NAI), the organization announced Tuesday. Dr. Block is President of the Hepatitis B Foundation, as well as its research arm, the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute, and its Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center. Dr. Block will be inducted into the National Academy Inventors on April 5, 2018, as part of the NAI Conference in Washington, DC.
Election to NAI Fellow status is the highest professional accolade bestowed solely to academic inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development, and welfare of society.
Dr. Block is being recognized for his contributions to therapeutic drug and biomarker of disease screening and discovery. Specifically, for methods of DNA transfer to mammalian cells (1979), methods of discovery of antiviral drugs and biomarkers of liver cancer (1986, 1996, 2000, 2003).
Dr. Block has been involved in viral hepatitis research for more than 30 years as a member of the faculty at Thomas Jefferson University (1984-2005) and Drexel University School of Medicine (2005-2015). He is also Adjunct Professor, Geisinger and University of Pennsylvania. School of Medicine. He has received numerous honors, including an honorary Medical Degree from the Bulgarian National Academy, elected Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the Glycobiology Institute of the University of Oxford. He holds more than 9 patents, co-authored more than 240 scholarly papers, and was named a “Visionary in Hepatitis” by the World Hepatitis Alliance in 2017. Dr. Block is a co-founder of the Hepatitis B Foundation (HBF), which created the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute in 2003 to fulfill its research mission. In 2006, Dr. Block co-founded the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center, an accelerator for start up companies. The companies are now collectively valued at more than $1.5 billion. Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center is home to, and managed by, the Blumberg Institute and Hepatitis B Foundation, and is intended to expand their research capabilities.
With the election of the 2017 class there are now 912 NAI Fellows, representing over 250 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes. The 2017 Fellows are named inventors on nearly 6,000 issued U.S. patents, bringing the collective patents held by all NAI Fellows to more than 32,000 issued U.S. patents.
Included among all NAI Fellows are more than 100 presidents and senior leaders of research universities and non-profit research institutes; 439 members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; 36 inductees of the National Inventors Hall of Fame; 52 recipients of the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation and U.S. National Medal of Science; 29 Nobel Laureates; 261 AAAS Fellows; 168 IEEE Fellows; and 142 Fellows of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, among other awards and distinctions. Baruch S. Blumberg, M.D., Ph.D., inventor of the original hepatitis B vaccine, was inducted in 1993.
On Apr. 5, 2018, the 2017 NAI Fellows will be inducted as part of the Seventh Annual NAI Conference of the National Academy of Inventors at the Mayflower Hotel, Autograph Collection in Washington, D.C. Andrew H. Hirshfeld, U.S. Commissioner for Patents, will provide the keynote address for the induction ceremony.
The 2017 NAI Fellows will be highlighted with a full page announcement in The Chronicle of Higher Education Jan. 19, 2018 issue, and in an upcoming issue of Science and Technology and Innovation, Journal of the National Academy of Inventors.
Those elected to the rank of NAI Fellow are named inventors on U.S. patents and were nominated by their peers for outstanding contributions to innovation in areas such as patents and licensing, innovative discovery and technology, significant impact on society, and support and enhancement of innovation.
The 2017 class of NAI Fellows was evaluated by the 2017 Selection Committee, which included 18 members comprising NAI Fellows, U.S. National Medals recipients, National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees, members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and senior officials from the USPTO, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Association of American Universities, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, Association of University Technology Managers, and National Inventors Hall of Fame, among other organizations.
# # #
About the Hepatitis B Foundation: The Hepatitis B Foundation is the nation’s leading nonprofit organization solely dedicated to finding a cure for hepatitis B and improving the quality of life for those affected worldwide through research, education and patient advocacy. To learn more, go to www.hepb.org, read our blog at http://hepb.org/blog, follow us on Twitter @HepBFoundation, find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/hepbfoundation or call 215-489-4900.
About the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute: The Baruch S. Blumberg Institute is an independent, nonprofit research institute established in 2003 by the Hepatitis B Foundation to conduct discovery research and nurture translational biotechnology in an environment conducive to interaction, collaboration and focus. It was renamed in 2013 to honor Baruch S. Blumberg, who won the Nobel Prize for his discovery of the hepatitis B virus and co-founded the Hepatitis B Foundation. To learn more, visit www.blumberginstitute.org.
About the Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center: The Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center offers state-of-the-art laboratory and office space to nonprofit research companies and biotech companies. Managed by the Baruch S. Blumberg Institute and led by a board appointed by the Hepatitis B Foundation, the Center was funded in part by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The facility opened in 2006 in a formerly abandoned warehouse and has since grown to encompass 110,000 square feet on a 10-acre campus. To learn more, visit www.pabiotechbc.org.
* * *
The National Academy of Inventors is a 501(c)(3) non-profit member organization comprising U.S. and international universities, and governmental and non-profit research institutes, with over 4,000 individual inventor members and Fellows spanning more than 250 institutions worldwide. It was founded in 2010 to recognize and encourage inventors with patents issued from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, enhance the visibility of academic technology and innovation, encourage the disclosure of intellectual property, educate and mentor innovative students, and translate the inventions of its members to benefit society.