Kan Cao Honored as 2024 Invention of the Year Finalist

The University of Maryland celebrates innovative campus research annually by recognizing Inventions of the Year. Since 1987, 116 inventions have been awarded the high distinction, selected for their technical merit, improvements to existing technology, commercial potential and overall benefit to society.

The 2024 winners were announced on April 29, 2024, as part of Innovate Maryland—an annual celebration of UMD researchers’ creativity in translating cutting-edge research into practical, impactful solutions to address global challenges.

“Each of tonight’s nominees for Invention of the Year started with that spark of an idea that was allowed to grow and evolve with the help of our robust research enterprise, which we all contribute to and improve on a daily basis,” Vice President for Research Gregory F. Ball said of this year’s 12 finalists. “I firmly believe that no grand challenge is too daunting for our world-class researchers to confront head-on and work toward a solution.”

Kan Cao, a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics, and Huijing Xue (Ph.D. ’23, biological sciences), were finalists for the Life Sciences Invention of the Year with "An Accelerated Cellular Model for Alzheimer’s Disease."

Lamin A is a key component of the nuclear lamina. Progerin, a truncated protein resulting from specific lamin A mutations, causes Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a disease that prematurely ages individuals. Cao and Xue investigated the effects of exogenous progerin expression on neural progenitor cells carrying familial AD mutations (FAD). Within three to four weeks of differentiation, these cells exhibited robust AD phenotypes. Additionally, progerin expression significantly increased AD cellular phenotypes such as cell death and cell cycle re-entry. These results suggest that progerin expression could be used to create an accelerated model for AD development and drug screening.