Duan Named National Academy of Inventors Fellow

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has named the University of Missouri School of Medicine’s Dongsheng Duan, PhD, to its 2019 Fellows Program.

The NAI Fellows Program highlights academic inventors who have demonstrated a spirit of innovation in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society.

Duan is the School of Medicine’s Margaret Proctor Mulligan Professor in Medical Research and specializes in gene therapy, virology, neuromuscular biology and molecular therapies. He holds 18 U.S. patents and has an additional five pending.

“I’m honored to be elected as a fellow,” Duan said. “I owe a lot to the people I have the privilege to work with, including my mentors, collaborators and most importantly my colleagues in the lab. I will continue to pursue my research in Duchenne muscular dystrophy and gene therapy, hopefully making more findings that can be translated to patients to improve their quality of life.”

The 2019 Fellow class represents 136 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutes worldwide. The class collectively holds over 3,500 issued U.S. patents.

Duan will be inducted as an NAI Fellow at the organization’s annual meeting in April. The complete list of NAI Fellows is available on the NAI website.