Scholarship Allows Oriana Hawkins to Attend BIO
Dunlap Codding Sponsors Graduate Student at BIO—
Oriana Hawkins Receives Oklahoma BioScience Travel Award
Dunlap Codding is a pleased to be once again a contributor to the Oklahoma BioScience Travel Award presented at the Graduate Research Education and Technology Symposium. The 2010 award has been given to Ph.D. candidate Oriana Hawkins. She is a student in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Oklahoma, mentored by Dr. William Hildebrand.
Dr. Hildebrand’s lab works to understand how the body’s alarm system, HLA, alerts the immune system to diseases such as cancer, HIV, and West Nile Virus. Hawkins has focused her energies on identifying new targets for breast cancer. The long term goal of her project is to develop T cell eliciting vaccines and antibody therapeutics to treat breast cancer. She is co-inventor on three patent applications related to her research; the applications were prepared and filed by Dunlap Codding.
Ms. Hawkins was selected to receive the Oklahoma Bioscience Travel Award for her presentation, “Targeting of Breast Tumors by an HLA A*0201/MIF Specific Antibody.” The award is part of the Graduate Research Education and Technology Symposium held annually at OUHSC. The award provided funds for travel expenses and registration fees to attend the BIO International Conference held in Chicago in 2010. BIO is the world’s largest annual event for the biotechnology industry.
While at BIO, Ms. Hawkins learned the business of bringing new therapeutic agents from discovery, to clinical trials, through FDA approval and, finally, to market. She made contacts within three large pharmaceutical companies which could significantly propel the development of her discoveries toward new cancer therapies.
“The opportunity for Oriana to network with scientists and business investors as a graduate student was a unique and eye-opening experience,” according to Douglas Sorocco, Dunlap Codding shareholder and adjunct faculty member in the Department of Physiology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center. “While many students see the academic importance of their work, few have the resources necessary to network with business leaders and investors at a conference like BIO so early in their careers. We are delighted to have made that opportunity available to Oriana and to other young scientists.”
Dunlap Codding was also a contributing sponsor of the Oklahoma booth at BIO, and a delegation from the firm, led by Dr. Kathryn Hester, helped to staff the booth in Chicago. The firm is a charter member of the Oklahoma Bioscience Association and supports the efforts of private and public sectors to grow the bioscience industry in Oklahoma.
Dunlap Codding P.C. is an Oklahoma City-based law firm serving regional, national and international clients. Established in 1957 as Oklahoma’s original intellectual property firm, Dunlap Codding remains the state’s largest and most versatile IP boutique. The firm serves a national and international client base and offer personalized, strategic, pragmatic and responsive legal counsel in a broad array of intellectual property practice areas. Dunlap Codding represents a substantial number of sophisticated client companies, and for the past 50 years has obtained more patents, trademarks and copyrights than any other firm in the region.