Bacteria to Do Our Bidding

[Editor’s note: We asked a group of Xconomists to answer the following question: “If you could patent one thing, what would it be?”]

Broad claims covering delivery of therapeutics using engineered bacteria. Synthetic biology tools emerging in just the last few years have made this possible. The trick, of course, is precise control. If I could patent a sure-fire control technology enabling precise delivery of drugs and biologics through living organisms such as bacteria, I would quit my day job.

Author: Matthew O'Donnell

Matthew O'Donnell is the Dean of the University of Washington's College of Engineering. He came to the UW in September 2006 from the University of Michigan, where he was chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. O'Donnell is a physicist by training with undergraduate through doctoral degrees from Notre Dame. He joined the University of Michigan faculty in 1990 as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science. In 1998, he was named the Jerry W. and Carol L. Levin Professor of Engineering and was appointed chair of the Biomedical Engineering Department in 1999. He won several engineering teaching awards at Michigan. O'Donnell, who was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in February 2009, is an expert in ultrasound imaging, and other new diagnostic imaging technologies, including ultrafast optics, in vivo microscopy, catheter imaging of coronary arteries, optoacoustic arrays, and elasticity and molecular imaging. He is principal or co-principal investigator on numerous research projects funded by the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies. O'Donnell holds 50 patents and has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications. He is associate editor of the journal Ultrasonic Imaging, is a permanent member of the National Institutes of Health Imaging Study Section, a fellow of both IEEE and AIMBE, and a member of Sigma Xi, and the American Physical Society. Earlier steps on his career path included postdoctoral fellowship and senior research associate positions at Washington University, St. Louis, a research fellowship at Yale University, and a decade of private-sector experience as a research and development physicist at General Electric in Schenectady, New York.