Lianrui Zuo and Chenyu Gao are the first scholars to receive provisional patents under VALIANT’s Innovation Incentive Program. The Vanderbilt Lab for Immersive AI Translation (VALIANT) is a dynamic translational AI hub and serves as a center for strategic partnerships and engagement in AI policy.
The VALIANT Innovation Incentive Program, in partnership with Vanderbilt’s Center for Technology Transfer and Commercialization (CTTC), provides scholars with guidance and financial incentives for completing the disclosure process and incentivizes industry to engage in order to create a more direct path to those disclosures.
Zuo, a postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt, and Gao, a third-year Ph.D. student, both specialize in medical image analysis and AI-driven solutions for health care. Their pioneering disclosures reflect the program’s mission—encouraging AI scholars to engage in the intellectual property process while maintaining their existing ownership and licensing rights, said VALIANT Director Bennett Landman, who holds the Stevenson Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering and has joint appointments in computer science, biomedical engineering, radiology and radiological sciences, psychiatry and behavioral sciences, biomedical informatics, and neurology.
Gao’s contributions include a model for predicting brain age from diffusion MRI. Zuo’s disclosures focus on generating 3D CT volumes from 2D slices for body composition analysis and extending the field of view in chest CT imaging to enhance lung cancer research. Their efforts exemplify the transformative potential of AI in medical imaging.
Both scholars emphasized the importance of bridging the gap between technical innovation and real-world application. “There is a gap between researchers, engineers, and business professionals. We need to find a language that makes our ideas accessible,” Gao noted. Zuo echoed this sentiment, adding, “Publishing is just one path—disclosure and patents open new doors for our research to make a broader impact.”
Zuo noted the ease of working with Vanderbilt’s CTTC. “Everything was so clear and smooth. I would never have thought to file a disclosure myself without the support of VALIANT and CTTC.” Gao emphasized the broader value of the experience. “This process taught me that research doesn’t stop at publication,” he said. “Understanding intellectual property and working with experts outside our field is key to making a lasting impact.”
Contact: brenda.ellis@vanderbilt.edu