Fall 2025
By Katharine Shilcutt

Patricia Stepp’s office works to take faculty research beyond the hedges into real-world applications. Stepp, Rice’s assistant vice president for technology transfer, has her doctoral degree in biomedical engineering and leads a team of experts dedicated to helping Rice faculty cut through the red tape of patenting and commercializing their inventions.

What is technology transfer, in a nutshell?
Technology transfer is the transfer of ideas in the research lab into opportunities to benefit society and make the world a better place. 

What does your office’s work entail on a daily basis?
The Office of Technology Transfer starts with an invention disclosure detailing the discovery from a Rice research lab. Our intellectual property (IP) team then evaluates and secures IP for the invention in the form of a patent. We oversee Rice’s entire patent portfolio. The licensing team then works to either help Rice startups with licensing technology or market to industry to secure industry partners to develop the technology. Our contracts team works at every stage by helping with agreements, such as industry-sponsored research agreements, nondisclosure agreements, material transfer agreements, collaboration agreements, etc.

I always tell the faculty, “We’re kind of your IP project manager.” When you submit that invention disclosure, we’re not just looking to file the patent. We’re also looking at what agreements you have in place, what obligations you have to funding agencies and what reporting Rice might need to do. We manage and negotiate your research agreements, oversee the entire patenting process and use our industry-standard template option and license agreements. We’re trying to help take that administrative burden off our researchers, because their job is to do the research — we’re working to help protect and commercialize their work.

What is your background? How did you come to this role?
I have a bachelor’s in chemical engineering and a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. I worked at a university biotech startup and completed two postdoctoral positions before moving into IP. I was a practicing patent agent at a law firm and then a company, specializing in the biotech and materials science spaces. As a patent agent, I worked on invention disclosures, competitive intelligence, and preparing and prosecuting patent applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and international patent offices. I spent five years at Arizona State University’s technology transfer office, Skysong Innovations, before coming to Rice in summer 2023.

Your team has grown recently, and they have a wealth of experience. Most are Ph.D.s themselves, right?
Yes! We have Ph.D.s in biomedical engineering, chemistry, genetics, medicinal chemistry, physics and quantum chemistry. We need that breadth of knowledge to work with our amazing faculty and researchers across so many different areas of research. OTT has over 50 years of experience in licensing, IP management and contract agreements. 

What are funding agencies looking for these days? 
They want to see translational research and IP protection. My most important advice for researchers is to have comparative testing, which also helps in the patent process. It is also our job to ensure we work with other offices to uphold our IP responsibilities with each funding agency, including federal, foundation and industry. Collaborations with other institutions are also an important aspect. Rice is fortunate to be in Houston, the energy capital of the world, and to have the largest medical center in the world right across the street — the Texas
Medical Center. We’ve built a lot of good relationships with the TMC, industry partners and universities globally.