The second annual Inventorship Showcase was held at the Lod Cook Alumni Center on Tuesday at LSU.
Many professors had the opportunity to display their inventions during the two-hour event. LSU Director of Innovation and Technology Commercialization Andrew Maas is in charge of putting on the event.
“Every year we put on this Inventorship Showcase annually to recognize our faculty that have received patents,” Maas said.
The event drew around 150 participants this year – an increase of 30 from last year. Maas is excited to see the Showcase grow as it gets bigger.
“One of the main motivations behind this event is to recognize our faculty for the great things they do in innovation, and to put them in a situation where they can rub shoulders with industry partners that are interested in their technology,” Maas said.
Many faculty members received awards for their projects. LSU School of Veterinary Medicine Professor Mandi Lopez received two patents for her ACL GraftGrab device.
“We have developed a device that makes it possible for the surgeon to tension the graft or pull it tight and then fix it at the desired tension,” Lopez said.
Lopez’s graft is designed to fix ACL graft reconstructions to the tibia. The device helps connect graft tissue to the bone after ACL surgery.
“The ACL is represented by the red and the device goes in the same hole as is drilled in the bone to pass the graph,” Lopez said.
The graft is designed to be tightened until it can be fixed to the bone. Other professors who brought their products to the Showcase include Mayur Sathe.
“We are displaying a microbubble generator and what it does is it disperses a large amount of gas into a big pool of liquid,” Sathe said.
Sathe is a professor in the Chemical Department. His device can handle about 100 cubic meters of gas per day. This gas amounts to carbon dioxide immersion – which is not profitable enough to be transported by a by-plant.
“So what we can make with this device is a small enough bioreactor that fits on a utility truck,” Sathe said. “You can transport it to that place and then you can start converting your waste gas into a liquid product.”
Sathe hopes to have his generator used by companies looking for alternates to their bioreactors. He said he’s already received interest from the waste production facility LanzaTech.
“We are going to propose this as an alternate to the technology LanzaTech has and they have shown an interest to use this as a plan B in their bioreactors,” Sathe said.
Aired on Newsbeat April 21st