Dr. Robert Lodder
Robert A. Lodder received his B.S. degree cum laude in Natural Science from Xavier University (Cincinnati, Ohio). After deciding to pursue a career in chemistry he worked under Professor Richard T. O'Neill at Xavier, and received his M.S. in Chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry after working with Professor Gary M. Hieftje at Indiana University, and is currently Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the College of Pharmacy, University of Kentucky Medical Center. Dr. Lodder holds joint appointments as a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Division of Analytical Chemistry of the Department of Chemistry at Kentucky.
Dr. Lodder is a first-prize winner in the international IBM Supercomputing Competition, as well as a winner of a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award, the American Society of Agricultural Engineers Paper Award, a Buchi NIR Award, the Tomas Hirschfeld Award in Near-IR Spectroscopy (PittCon), a Research and Development 100 Award, and the Orville N. Green Award (SETICon).
Dr. Lodder has conducted academic research at the University of Kentucky using grants totaling over $18 million. This research led to 40 US and foreign patents and pending patent applications, the founding of five new companies, and his becoming president and CEO of a NASDAQ company. The first start-up company, InfraReDx, was founded in 1998 and raised over $210 million in private capital for novel research before being sold to a $5 billion company in Japan. InfraReDx still operates from Burlington, Massachusetts. In April 2008, InfraReDx received FDA marketing clearance for the Lipiscan coronary imaging system originally invented and patented by Dr. Lodder. His second company, Prescient, raised $49 million for research and development, and Spherix invested $47 million in drug development before it was sold in separate transactions. The total of over $300 million in capital investment helps meet the mandate to commercialize university research.
Dr. Lodder served as president and was on the board of directors of Spherix (NASDAQ:SPEX). Dr. Lodder has conducted multiple clinical trials for his companies, NIH and DARPA, including global phase 2 and phase 3 clinical trials of an oral diabetes medication in 60 hospitals and clinics worldwide. Spherix (now AIkido Pharma, NASDAQ:AIKI) licensed its lead drug candidate for dyslipidemia, SPX106T, from Dr. Lodder’s lab at the University of Kentucky. Escent Technologies commercialized a solid-state spectral imager invented by Dr. Lodder for a NASA robotic mission to Mars.
Dr. Lodder is author of 160 publications and over 350 presentations. Dr. Lodder served as president and then CEO of Spherix (NASDAQ: SPEX) before Biospherics. He joined TVM Venture Partners and assisted portfolio companies in commercialization.
The Google citation index lists over 8700 citations to Dr. Lodder's research (an average of 54 citations/publication). Dr. Lodder is the recipient of two national and five international research achievement awards. Dr. Lodder's doctoral graduates have entered academia, government, and industry.
Dr. Lodder has conducted mathematical studies aimed at solving the "false-sample" problem in thought-like operations on parallel processors. The parallel processing concepts have been extended to analytical instrumentation itself in the form of systems for hyperspectral integrated computational imaging (HICI) and the development of magnetohydrodynamic acoustic-resonance near-infrared spectrometry (MAReNIR). Two companies were based on these new technologies.
The results of these studies have been applied to a number of different analytical problems, including near-infrared imaging, pharmaceutical quality control, and the detection of product tampering in foods and pharmaceuticals. These studies have also led to progress in noninvasive methods for analyzing complex biological samples. The new imaging technology is now being applied to in vivo studies of the role of selected proteins and lipids in atherogenesis, and has been used in three-dimensional imaging of painted historical surfaces under restoration.
Contact Dr. Lodder:
Tel: 18599550845
E-mail: Lodder at uky.edu