CARBONDALE - Ajay Mahajan believes institutions such as Southern Illinois University Carbondale house tremendous amounts of intellectual property, but much of it never leaves campus.

Mahajan, a professor of mechanical engineering and energy processes and president of Clipius Technologies Inc., said he's taken advantage of opportunities made possible by SIUC. He's filed three patents through the university, and one of them earned NASA's best medical invention award last year.

"I think that's more of an exception than a rule," he said, referencing professor patenting research done in campus labs and bringing their work to the commercial and professional realm.

Clipius Technologies, founded by Mahajan and four others with ties to SIUC, has earned a spot as a finalist in the Innovate Illinois competition for a new device that allows surgeons to rotate rods used in spinal reconstruction surgeries without lateral movement.

Dr. Sumeer Lal, vice president of Clipius and a practicing neurosurgeon in Greenwood, S.C., used the new tool in its first clinical test this week.

"It's a device that the company is anticipating potentially to be used in all its surgical tests," Lal said. "Most importantly, it may make surgery a little bit easier for people."

In the Innovate Illinois competition, Clipius has earned a spot as one of the final six in its category. More than 130 companies from across the state applied, and 32 were selected to appear in Chicago in September. From there, the field was narrowed to 12 - six in each of two categories - that will appear in the contest's final stage in Chicago on Nov. 18.

Many of the other five finalists use "a model that is amazing similar to ours," Mahajan said. These companies also come from university partnerships at the University of Illinois, Northwestern and other major schools in the state.

"We can do the same thing here," Mahajan said. "There's nothing that can stop us from doing it here."

adam.testa@thesouthern.com

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