The National Academy of Inventors (NAI), a nonprofit member organization that promotes academic technology and innovation, has named four Keck School of Medicine of USC faculty as new senior members: Paula Cannon, PhD ; Alan Epstein, MD, PhD ; Heinz-Josef Lenz, MD ; and Bodour Salhia, PhD .
The new senior members will be welcomed at the 2026 NAI conference , hosted by USC at Loews Hollywood Hotel from June 1 to 4.
NAI senior members are recognized for their work producing innovative technologies that have the potential for real impact on the welfare of society, as well as success in patents, licensing and commercialization. This year’s members from the Keck School of Medicine are being recognized for their innovations in cancer and HIV.
Dean of the Keck School of Medicine, Carolyn Meltzer, MD , commended the honorees for pursuing research questions that could lead to major advancements.
“Election to the NAI is a well-deserved recognition for four of our friends and colleagues who exemplify ingenuity in service of patients everywhere,” said Meltzer, May S. and John H. Hooval, M.D., Dean’s Chair and professor of radiology. “They have poured their considerable passion, expertise and curiosity into solving some of the biggest problems facing human health. These are beautiful stories of success in extending and improving people’s lives.”
Over the last 30 years at USC, Cannon has built a track record of driving progress in gene therapy and cell-based treatments for HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Her group’s innovations include new methods for editing genes and delivering gene therapies. One technology developed in Cannon’s lab laid the foundation for an HIV/AIDS clinical trial conducted by City of Hope with funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and Sangamo Biosciences.
“Developing new treatments can be a long process, and I like being at the part where the idea is invented,” said Cannon, Distinguished Professor of Immunology and Immune Therapeutics, Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Biomedical Engineering, and special adviser to the provost. “I’m an academic, but I think about how my research can result in patents, be licensed to companies and have real-world impact. The NAI award recognizes that throughout my career, I’ve been productive in that realm.”
Her current research focuses on reprogramming the body’s natural defenses. Cannon takes inspiration from CAR T therapy, in which a population of a patient’s own immune cells known as T cells are engineered to seek and destroy cancer. She and her colleagues are instead altering B cells, a different type of immune cell that releases antibodies, to turn them into factories pumping out custom-designed antibodies targeting HIV/AIDS , cancer, autoimmune disease and infectious diseases.
“I’m a believer in the practicality of cell and gene therapies,” Cannon said. “My inventions are cogs in a larger wheel, because these are massive undertakings with lots of people playing their part. It’s a community of dreamers, but also of very practical inventors.”
She highlights the importance of USC’s research infrastructure, including the USC Stevens Center for Innovation , which is working on licensing her engineered B cell technology, and the Keck School of Medicine’s MESH Academy , where she serves as associate director of cross school programs.
“That’s an advantage of being at a powerhouse university like USC that supports inventors,” she said. “There’s a lot of expertise — people who can hold the hands of professors who want to move their inventions to where they can do the most good.”
Today, custom-designed antibodies are a mainstay of treatment for a range of conditions including cancer and autoimmune disease. Since 1985, Epstein has been innovating in this area, authoring more than 45 patents for these monoclonal antibodies and other technologies for fighting cancer.
“Election to the NAI is a nice reward for many years of invention,” said Epstein, who is a professor of pathology at the Keck School of Medicine and of pharmacology and pharmaceutical sciences at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center .
While his technologies have already improved the diagnosis, monitoring and treatment of lymphoma and other cancers, Epstein considers his current project to have the greatest potential. He and his colleagues aim to enhance antibody treatments by attaching a short snippet of bacterial DNA — an add-on that activates immune cells.
“In contrast to mathematicians and physicists, who tend to do their best work in their 20s and 30s, biologists like me often do so near the end of our careers,” he said. “My current investigations are based on 40 years of research, and I couldn’t have done it earlier because we didn’t know enough at the time.”
Teamwork has always been integral to Epstein’s science. Key faculty partners at the Keck School of Medicine have included pathologists Leslie Khawli, PhD , and Clive Taylor, MD, and radiologists Sally DeNardo, MD, and Gerald DeNardo, MD. Epstein also gives credit to a decades-long teammate in his research group, Peisheng Hu, PhD, a research assistant professor of pathology whom he describes as “courageous in the lab and someone who knows how to get things done.”
Epstein added: “Many years back, individual scientists could make a great discovery. Today, we really depend on our collaborators, and I’ve had wonderful ones over the years who helped me define who I am now.”
Lenz delves into the molecular signatures of colorectal cancer. His findings inform ways to detect the disease, predict its course, develop new drugs, and match each patient with the most effective treatment for their disease. The technologies he’s created advance personalized medicine for the second-leading cause of cancer death.
“Knowing that my peers recognize the value, quality and integrity of my research makes me very happy,” said Lenz, a University Professor of Medicine and of Cancer Biology and the J. Terrence Lanni Chair in Gastrointestinal Cancer Research. At the USC Norris cancer center, he is co-director of the USC Rosalie and Harold Rae Brown Center for Cancer Drug Development.
He and his team base their studies in evidence from the clinic. They profile the molecular characteristics of thousands of tissue samples from patients, and scour their databases for insights using advanced analytic techniques including artificial intelligence. This approach identifies targets that few others are studying.
Based on these leads, Lenz and his colleagues do painstaking experiments investigating the biochemical pathways involved in colorectal cancer. Potential therapies based on these targets are currently in preclinical development.
As with Epstein, collaboration is a strong enabling factor for Lenz, who holds a visiting appointment at Caltech, where he works with biochemist Judith Campbell, PhD. They are developing a combination treatment that augments chemotherapy and monoclonal antibodies with a drug inhibiting a gene linked to colorectal cancer.
He also touts the importance of his exciting collaborations with faculty colleagues at the Keck School of Medicine, USC Mann and USC Viterbi School of Engineering , including Lin Zhang, PhD , Jian Yu, PhD , Julio Camarero, PhD , Stacey Finley, PhD , and Steve Kay , PhD.
“Part of our success is the high-quality, productive collaborators here at USC,” Lenz said. “They make us look very good.”
Salhia’s science is guided by the mission of developing blood tests that detect cancer. This strategy, called the liquid biopsy, finds fragments of tumor DNA in the circulatory system. Liquid biopsies can make cancers easier to diagnose, in some cases eliminating the need for surgery to sample tissue, and have the potential to improve early detection, when cancers are easier to treat.
When Salhia started, many researchers in this area looked for DNA mutations associated with cancer. She has cut a path that was unique at the time: investigating chemical alterations, known as epigenetic changes, that regulate the activity of genes without altering them directly
“Becoming an NAI senior member is validating,” said Salhia, professor and interim chair of cancer biology and Royce and Mary Trotter Chair in Cancer Research at the Keck School of Medicine and co-leader of the Epigenetic Regulation in Cancer Research Program at the cancer center. “Some had doubts about whether we could use epigenetic markers to detect cancer, but for me, the data has to guide the story in the end. This recognition is another sign that I’m doing something right.”
With perseverance and diligence, she has patented technologies based on epigenetic markers specific to cancers of the ovaries and breast. To translate her discoveries, Salhia founded CpG Diagnostics , a startup dedicated to commercializing off-the-shelf blood tests.
One test under development looks for residual traces of breast cancer after treatment, as a way to prevent recurrence. Another technology detects ovarian cancer in the blood to differentiate between benign and malignant tumors, which is difficult with current techniques.
“We need better tools,” Salhia said. “The goal is to make sure those who have ovarian cancer see a gynecologic oncologist as soon as possible. And if it’s not cancer, treatment can be more conservative.”
She has engaged hundreds of patients to be part of her breast cancer research through the Bench with Bedside Initiative . Volunteers who contribute blood samples have been welcomed for an inside look into the investigations they make possible.
“When we started the initiative, we figured that our research should be transparent, and this seemed like a perfect chance to build community with participants,” Salhia said. “It gives them hope.”