The International Biomedical Research Alliance, a nonprofit organization which provides programming and funding support for the NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholars Program, has announced that Jeffrey I. Auerbach, Ph.D., is joining the Alliance’s board of directors. Dr. Auerbach is the founder and managing member of AuerbachSchrot, an intellectual property (IP) law firm based in Rockville, Md.

“The International Biomedical Research Alliance is always looking for new ways to support the NIH Oxford-Cambridge scholars and broaden their postgraduate medical research training. By partnering with Dr. Auerbach, who has 30 years’ experience in patent licensing, and has provided  counsel for some of the most complex biotechnology cases, we will help increase their knowledge of  this important arena,” said Stephen M. McLean, chairman of the Alliance Board of Directors. “We are delighted that Dr. Auerbach has agreed to join our Board.”

“This is a wonderful opportunity to help mentor the next generation of medical researchers who are going to shape the future of healthcare,” said Dr. Auerbach. “As a medical researcher and a patent lawyer, I understand many of the questions and challenges that these scholars face and have the experience to be able to provide practical, tangible guidance.”

Dr. Auerbach prepares and litigates bioinformatics, diagnostics, genetics, microbiology, molecular biology and therapeutic patent applications. He is also an expert in protecting global patent rights. Furthermore, he has patents of his own for vaccine production and isothermal “rolling circle” nucleic acid amplification.

He is also an entrepreneur. Dr. Auerbach founded Replicon, a biotechnology company that used rolling circle amplification in diagnostics, genomics and therapeutics, in 1994 and served as its president for almost eight years until it was acquired by Biokit. He then founded DC Associates, a company that licensed nucleic acid amplification technologies, and was its president for more than a decade.

Dr. Auerbach has an MPhil and a PhD in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University. He also has a JD from the National Law Center of George Washington University.