Description

Why do universities make significant distinctions among ownership of data, inventions and scholarly works? What are researchers and scholars giving away when they sign with publishers? What perils are inherent in consulting NDAs, CDAs and other industry agreements? What work belongs to faculty, and what belongs to students? University writers grapple with such questions on a daily basis, but there seem seldom to be simple, clear answers. University Counsel Madelyn Wessel navigates the complex and much-contested issue of intellectual property. Lunch will be served at 11:30 a.m. The lecture will begin at noon.

The event is free and open to all, but please register. Parking is available for a fee in the 8th Street parking deck. If special accommodations are needed, please contact the VCU Libraries Events Office at (804) 828-0593.

Sponsors

VCU Libraries and the VCU Office of Research and innovation present this Sanger Series lecture.

About the Speakers

Featured speaker—Madelyn Wessel is the university counsel for VCU and a senior assistant attorney general for the Commonwealth of Virginia. Previously associate general counsel at the University of Virginia, she had a broad practice including intellectual property law, FOIA, technology, libraries, student affairs, civil rights and employment law. She served as deputy and later chief deputy city attorney for the City of Portland, Or., from 1989 to 2001. She served as an assistant attorney general and chief of the opinions division in the Massachusetts Department of Justice from 1987 to 1989. She is on the board of directors of NACUA, the National Association of College and University Attorneys, and chairs NACUANOTES, a publication series. She holds a BA with honors from Swarthmore College and a J.D. from Boston University.

Panelist—Francis L.  Macrina, Ph.D., is the Edward Myers Professor of Dentistry and vice president for research and innovation at VCU. His research program on the pathogenesis of infectious diseases at VCU was continuously supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for 33 years and included prestigious Research Career Development and MERIT Awards. He has authored over 120 scientific publications. He has served two terms on NIH study sections and was both a member and the chair of the NIDCR Board of Scientific Counselors. He also served a four-year term on the NIH National Advisory Dental and Craniofacial Research Council. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and Infection and Immunity. He was both co-editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief of the journal Plasmid. His current scholarly interests include teaching and behavioral and educational research in scientific ethics. He has served as a member of the ASM Ethics Committee and the Ethics Committee of the American Association for Dental Research. In 2014 he was appointed to a four-year term of service on the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, a federal advisory committee that addresses biosecurity and dual use research issues. He is the author of a widely-used textbook on research ethics. The fourth edition of Scientific Integrity was published in 2014. His career at VCU has included service as a chair of two departments, interim director of the VCU Massey Cancer Center and director of the Philips Institute for Oral Health. He earned his B.S. degree from Cornell University and his Ph.D. from Syracuse University. He completed postdoctoral training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Panelist—Jerome F. Strauss III, M.D., is the dean of the VCU School of Medicine and executive vice president for medical affairs of the VCU Health System. Prior to assuming his current position, he was the Luigi Mastroianni, Jr. Professor and founding director of the Center for Research on Reproduction and Women's Health and associate chairman of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania. He received a B.A. degree with honors in biology from Brown University and M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. His past administrative experience includes nearly a decade as associate dean in the School of Medicine and P.I. and program director of the University of Pennsylvania's Medical Scientist Training Program. He served as a member of the National Advisory Child Health and Human Development Council of the National Institutes of Health, and he currently chairs the Board of Scientific Counselors of NICHD. He also served as a member of the Discovery Expert Group of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He retired from the board of directors of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, of which he was chair, and he has served on the board of trustees of the Bayer Foundation. He has authored over 310 original scientific articles and holds 12 issued U.S. patents for discoveries in diagnostics and therapeutics. He has served as an editor or on the editorial boards of the Journal of Lipid Research, Endocrinology, the Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Molecular Human Reproduction, Biology of Reproduction, Human Reproduction Update, Journal of Endocrinology, Seminars in Reproductive Medicine and Placenta, and he has been a member of the board of reviewing editors for Science. He currently sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Women's Health and Gender-based Medicine, Reproductive Science, Trends in Endocrinology and Metabolism. He is an editor of Steroids and senior editor of Yen and Jaffe's Reproductive Endocrinology, the major textbook in the field of reproductive medicine. His honors include election to AOA (1971); the University of Pennsylvania's Berwick Award for Teaching (1983) and Medical Student Government Award for Distinguished Teaching (1983); the President's Achievement Award from the Society for Gynecologic Investigation (1990), of which he is past president (2004); the Society for the Study of Reproduction Research Award (1992); election to the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences (1994); the Transatlantic Medal of the British Endocrine Society (1994); and the Beacon (2001), Pioneer (2004) and National Research Distinguished Service Awards (2007) for contributions to the reproductive sciences. He received the 2005 Distinguished Graduate Award from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, the highest honor that the School of Medicine bestows upon an alumnus. In 2006, he received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Gynecologic Investigation, the society's highest honor for contributions to the field of women's health research. He was named Chuenkong Scholar by the China Ministry of Education in 2006. In 2009, he received the Rector's Medal from the University of Chile for contributions to research and research training benefiting the University of Chile. He shared the 2012 Fondo Nestle Award for Investigations in Nutrition for his research on L-arginine supplementation to prevent preeclampsia in high-risk Mexican populations. He was named Honorary Professor at Wuhan Institute of Science and Technology in 2013.

Image: Sanger Series: Intellectual Property and the Academy: An Overview of Patent, Data and Copy RIGHTS, by Jeff Bland