Two UAB Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine faculty members, Michael Niederweis, PhD, a professor in the Department of Microbiology, and Cynthia Owsley, PhD, a professor in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences, have been named fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) for their innovation in creating inventions that have made an impact. This is the first time in over a decade that this distinction was awarded to two UAB faculty in the same year.

Niederweis, who holds 12 patents, discovered the channel protein MspA, which can be modified to sequence DNA quickly and inexpensively. His technique received Method of the Year 2022 by Nature Methods. Owsley, who holds 11 U.S. patents, invented a dark adaptometer, an apparatus that detects impaired dark adaptation, commonly used in the study of age-related muscular degeneration.

The NAI is comprised of U.S. and international universities, along with governmental and nonprofit research institutes. It has 4,000 members and spans more than 250 institutions worldwide.