Bruce Branchaud, Distinguished Scientist in CEDAR with an appointment in CPB, receives the highest professional distinction for academic inventors, National Academy of Inventors Fellow

CEDAR distinguished scientist named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

Branchaud receives highest professional distinction for academic inventors

Today the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) announced that OHSU Cancer Early Detection Advanced Research (CEDAR) distinguished scientist and University of Oregon professor emeritus Bruce Branchaud, Ph.D., is a 2020 NAI Fellow.

According to the NAI, the 2020 Fellow class represents 115 research universities and governmental and non-profit research institutes worldwide. Collectively, the 2020 Fellow class holds over 4,700 issued U.S. patents. This year’s Fellow class comprised of 175 prolific academic innovators includes 24 recipients of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, six recipients of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and two Nobel Laureates.

The NAI Fellows Selection Committee selects candidates that have “demonstrated a highly prolific spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on the quality of life, economic development, and the welfare of society.”

“I am honored to receive this distinction, and to be included among a group of peers I respect and admire,” says Branchaud, who was recruited to join CEDAR in 2017. “This distinction is particularly meaningful to me as it represents how applied technology can impact the greater good. It exemplifies CEDAR’s mission: to focus on the development of truly impactful real-world solutions for the early detection of cancer.”

Branchaud says CEDAR has a “strong applied/translational team” and calls out several scientists, including Sadik Esener, Ph.D., Michael Heller, Ph.D., Eugene Tu, B.S., and Ryan Krone, Ph.D, as exceptional colleagues. “Each of them are highly qualified, and I have no doubt will be NAI Fellows themselves one day.”

Branchaud brings vast research expertise to his role in CEDAR, with a background that includes synthetic organic chemistry, mechanistic/physical organic chemistry, chemical biology, biochemistry, enzymology, chemistry-enabled biotechnology, and biochemistry-enabled biotechnology. He has a been faculty member with the University of Oregon for 37 years, now in a professor emeritus role. 

Outside of academia, he has held several leadership positions in the biotech industry, including serving as the Director of Global Chemistry at Invitrogen, where he first collaborated with Sadik Esener, Ph.D., who was then a professor of nanoengineering and electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, San Diego.

“I am thrilled that Bruce has been recognized by the National Academy of Inventors,” says Sadik Esener, Ph.D., Director, OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Center for Early Detection Research. “He has the unique ability to translate academic hypotheses and theories, and bring those findings into the real world through the biotechnology industry, and now, CEDAR. We are lucky to have him contributing to CEDAR’s mission to detect and eliminate cancer early. Congratulations, Bruce, on this well-deserved honor.”

Branchaud has been honored with several other notable distinctions throughout his career, including: an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fellow of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Fellow.

To date, NAI Fellows hold more than 42,700 issued U.S. patents, which have generated over 13,000 licensed technologies and companies, and created more than 36 million jobs. In addition, over $2.2 trillion in revenue has been generated based on NAI Fellow discoveries.

2020 NAI Fellows are invited to attend the Fellows Induction Ceremony on June 7-9, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.  A senior representative of the United States Patent and Trademark Office will provide the keynote address for the ceremony.