Kenneth Karanja

Kenneth Karanja is the technology licensing officer responsible for licensing life science assets including antibodies, reagents, cell lines, and animal models. Kenny joined the Tech Comm group in 2019 from the University of Iowa where he was a senior licensing associate responsible for marketing and licensing life science, computer science and engineering and medical device assets. Kenny has over 10 years’ experience in academic research at the University of Minnesota and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). He graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities with a PhD in Biochemistry Molecular Biology and Biophysics and a Master’s degree in Medical Device Innovation. He was a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech where he researched the molecular contribution of nuclease/helicases to genome maintenance and stability. As a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota, he studied lipid metabolism in muscles seeking to unravel the “Athlete’s Paradox.” He is a named inventor on several issued US patents for small molecule adjuvants for chemotherapy and is involved in commercializing these compounds. Kenny is passionate about entrepreneurship and technology transfer and has helped startup companies and university inventors develop and execute business/product development and intellectual property protection strategies. Kenny was awarded the prestigious Bremer Scholarship (2017) by the Association of University Technology Managers.