The University of Tennessee Research Foundation recently welcomed Kusum Rathore as the new Vice President of UTRF’s Multi-Campus Office. Before becoming VP, Rathore spent several years at UTRF as a Licensing Assistant and Technology Manager.
I’m so pleased to name Kusum as the newest VP of UTRF,” said UTRF President Maha Krishnamurthy. “She spent years learning the ins and outs of UT’s vast portfolio and working with inventors. Her experience and vision for the organization make her the perfect fit for this role. I look forward to seeing the great things this UTRF office will do in the next few years.”
Rathore described the transition into her new position as “smooth” and “seamless.” In addition to advancing UT technology and advising inventors, she looks forward to mentoring and supporting the UTRF staff.
I’m thankful to have such a great team here with complementing qualifications and experience,” said Rathore. “Some are newer to the tech transfer world like I was when I first started at UTRF. I want to help them grow and succeed.”
Rathore holds a doctorate in Oncology and Cancer Biology from UT Knoxville, a Master of Science in Biomedical Sciences from Delhi University, and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Rajasthan.
As a child, I was fascinated with human health and wanted to be a doctor. But as I got into my graduate studies, my focus changed,” said Rathore. “My dad used to joke and tell me I should go into medicine, but I remember telling him, ‘I don’t want to write prescriptions; I want to discover new medications.’ While I am not discovering new medications, I am helping in the successful commercialization of various technologies discovered and developed at UT.”
Following a post-doctoral fellowship at UTK, Rathore accepted a short-term role as a Senior Scientist at 490 BioTech, a UTRF startup. Through this position, she was introduced to UTRF and entered tech transfer. After working for UTRF for over 5 years, Rathore was most recently working as Innovation and commercialization Manager at Thermo Fisher Scientific managing a portfolio of novel manufacturing and analytical platforms technologies utilized in the manufacture and testing of advanced cellular therapies.
Early on, the biggest learning curve was to know when to remove my scientist hat and put on my tech transfer hat. I had to learn to manage my time because UTRF had – and still has – a large portfolio,” said Rathore. “But while difficult, I loved learning new things. In tech transfer, you’re are always at the forefront of new scientific discoveries.”
Rathore’s goal is to bring attention to how UTRF can help faculty, staff and students advance their research. She believes her experience as a doctorate student and post-graduate researcher at UTK and scientist at a startup leveraging university technology makes her uniquely suited to accomplish this goal.
I’ve quite literally been in the researcher’s shoes and walked the same hallways. I understand the unique issues and troubles they face,” said Rathore. “UTRF can help them get industry support and built partnerships to promote and support research enterprise and eventually commercialize the UT technologies for the good of the people.”