Innovation is the heart of BD. Each year, we invest more than a billion dollars in innovation, knowing that behind every advance we make, there’s a patient who could get a more accurate result, a faster or better treatment, a better quality of life, and, ideally, more time. Given that impact, it’s vital that we  continue to cultivate a culture where innovation can thrive and support our innovators, ensuring their inventions are captured and protected. This protection is ideally in the form of a patent, which prohibits others from making, using or selling a product or design for a period of 20 years.

This year, the Society of Women Engineers (SWE)—a non-profit organization committed to advancing and honoring the contributions of women at all stages of their careers—awarded 12 BD associates for recent patent innovations that are helping to drive healthcare forward. Each year, SWE recognizes individuals and groups who demonstrate their values: Integrity, Inclusive Environment, Mutual Support, Professional Excellence, and Trust. Congratulations to our FY22 SWE Individual Patent Awardees:

• Lisa Bailey, Associate Staff Engineer, Product Development
• Samantha Garrabrant, Program Manager, Operations
• Janice Hong, HR Programs Manager
• Jessica Hoye, R&D Program Manager
• Linda Kunardi, R&D Staff Engineer
• Melody Kuroda, Staff Engineer II - R&D
• Janice Pak, Staff Engineer, Mechanical
• Alyssa Shedlosky, Sr. Manager, R&D Mechanical Engineering
• Wendy Smyth, Sr Manager, UI / Human Factors Engineering
• Jim Timko, Sr Director, Manufacturing
• Leslie Wilson, Sr Engineer II, UX/UI - Art
• Honghua Zhang, Sr Manager, R&D

Each associate plays a role in how BD helps drive healthcare forward
While these may be individual awards, innovation is a team sport. Often, many collaborators are named on one patent and an immense amount of intellectual property by groups of smart, creative and passionate associates can go into each device or solution we make. Let’s take a closer look at how one associate’s patent plays a role in helping impact patients and improve outcomes.

One contribution to a breakthrough research tool
The patents that Janice Hong worked on contributed to one of our exciting breakthrough reagents used in flow cytometry. Flow cytometry is an essential technique in biomedical research that allows scientists to identify and analyze single cells based on their characteristics, letting scientists study them in more detail to do everything from better understand the immune system to develop new treatments for diseases like cancer and HIV. For cells that have few receptors on the surface, bright reagents are essential in resolving these dim cells from others in a sample. The characteristics of the BD Horizon Brilliant™ Polymer Dyes enable them to achieve, in some cases, much brighter fluorescence signals than traditional organic fluorescent dyes or even phycobiliproteins such as PE or APC.

“Because they are so bright, fluorescent polymer dyes in these reagents enables the detection of low antigen density cells,” said Hong. “This gives our customers tools to detect obscure and rare cell populations, ultimately enabling more robust diagnosis, care, and treatment of patients whose disease diagnosis relies on flow cytometry.”

Scientists are now empowered to more accurately and confidently study cells of interest, which can streamline discovery research and unlock potential therapies for disease in a broad range of fields including oncology, autoimmune disorders and infectious diseases.

Read more about the dyes and their impact on the future of healthcare here.

Advancing the world of health
Innovative ideas from associates like these awardees will continue to be vital as we look for new and better ways of fulfilling our purpose of advancing the world of health™—whether that’s creating a smart device ecosystem to empower personalized medicine or leveraging cutting-edge technologies to expand care into new and more convenient settings, like patients’ homes.