Graduate and Postdoctoral Research Symposium 2023

The Symposium will begin with welcoming remarks by Dr. Guillermo "Willy" Prado, Dean of the Graduate School. Dr. Len Pinchuk will provide the keynote address with his presentation titled The Three-Legged Stool of Innovation. The session will end with 10 minutes of Q&A moderated by Dean Prado.


Dr. Len Pinchuk has 138 issued U.S. patents and over 100 publications, and founded 10 companies. His major accomplishments include the invention of the Nylon 12 angioplasty balloon (used by all interventional cardiology companies), the helical wire stent (Johnson and Johnson/Cords, FL and Medtronic, MN), the modular stent-graft for bypassing aortic aneurysms, a drug-eluting stent (TAXUS®, Boston Scientific Coporation, MA), Bionate® polycarbonate urethane (Covestro AG, Germany), SIBS (Innovia LLC, Miami, FL), radiation oncology catheters (TriSalus, CO) a novel glaucoma treatment device (the PRESERFLO® MicroShunt, InnFocus/Santen, Osaka, JP), the next generation intraocular lens (Eyedeal, Xi’an China) and a pull-out injury safe urinary drainage catheter (InnoCare Urologics, LLC, Miami, FL). His inventions are used in over a billion patients world-wide with a financial impact well over $100 billion. He was inducted into the U.S. National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 2012, and he received the National Academy of Engineering 2019 Fritz J. and Dolores H. Russ Prize, the world’s top prize in bioengineering, for innovations in medical devices that enable minimally invasive angioplasty treatment of advanced coronary artery disease. Len received a B.Sc. in chemistry from McGill University (Montreal, Canada, 1976) and a Ph.D. in Engineering and Chemistry from the University of Miami (Miami, Florida, 1984). A Founder of InnFocus, Inc., now a Santen company, Len currently serves as Senior Vice President and Executive Principal Scientist, Polymer Engineer. He also enjoys an appointment as Distinguished Research Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami (Miami, FL).