A horticulturist and biochemist who identified a novel compound that extends the freshness and storage life of fruits, vegetables and flowers and a team that created the Kiva system, which advanced warehouse order fulfillment for e-commerce, are among innovators being inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
Twenty-seven innovators will be honored May 6-7 during the Greatest Celebration of American Innovation in Alexandria, Virginia.
Horticulturist Sylvia Blankenship and biochemist Edward Sisler are being honored for identifying 1-methylcyclopropene (1-MCP), a novel compound that significantly extends the freshness and storage life of fruits, vegetables and cut floral products by mitigating the effects of ethylene. Contributing to large reductions in food waste, and year-round access to fresh fruit, 1-MCP is best known for its use with apple crops under the trade name SmartFresh. For floriculture crops, it is known by the name EthylBloc.
Ethylene, a naturally occurring gas, stimulates plant development and fruit ripening by docking in plant cell receptor sites. 1-MCP docks in these same sites, in place of ethylene, and alters the signals that drive cellular processes. As a result, produce and flowers treated with 1-MCP remain fresh much longer.
1-MCP was patented in 1996 and was soon licensed by Floralife for floral crops. In 1996, AgroFresh was formed to commercialize 1-MCP for fruits and vegetables. That product, SmartFresh, was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency for use in the United States and introduced in 2002. Today, SmartFresh is used on more than 30 crops, including 50 to 70 percent of the apples harvested in the United States.
Licensing fees for 1-MCP have brought in more than $25 million for North Carolina State University, the highest royalty revenues in the school’s history.
Blankenship, who has received multiple awards for her work, earned her bachelor of science and master of science degrees in horticulture science at Texas A&M University, and a doctorate in horticulture science at Oregon State University. She is professor emerita at NCSU.
Sisler, a biochemist at NCSU, had been studying the various aspects of ethylene physiology and biochemistry for years before collaborating with Blankenship in the 1980s.
Sisler, a native of Friendsville, Maryland, earned bachelor of science and master of science degrees from the University of Maryland. He obtained his doctorate in plant physiology from NCSU, where he spent his career as a biochemistry professor and researcher. Sisler is being honored posthumously.
Raffaello D’Andrea, Mick Mountz and Peter Wurman created the Kiva system, which has dramatically advanced warehouse order fulfillment for e-commerce. Using thousands of autonomous mobile robots to lift and move racks of inventory shelves to workers who select items for individual shipments, the Kiva system substantially reduced the time from order placement to shipping.
In 2003, D’Andrea, a co-founder of the systems engineering program at Cornell University, and faculty adviser and system architect of the four-time world champion Cornell robot soccer team, had just started his sabbatical at MIT when he met Mountz over a 15-minute cup of coffee. After several more meetings, D’Andrea quit his sabbatical at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and joined Mountz and Wurman in their quest to revolutionize order fulfillment. In 2005, the trio renamed their company to Kiva Systems and Staples became the first of many customers. In 2012, Amazon bought Kiva and eventually named it Amazon Robotics.
D’Andrea, an IEEE Fellow named on more than 40 U.S. patents, earned his bachelor of science degree in engineering science from the University of Toronto and his master of science and doctoral degrees in electrical engineering from the California Institute of Technology.
In 2013, D’Andrea co-founded ROBO Global, which launched the world’s first robotics exchange traded fund. In 2014, he founded Verity, which creates autonomous indoor drone systems, where he serves as CEO and chair.
Mountz earned his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering from MIT and a master of business administration degree from Harvard University. In 2002, he conceived of a more efficient method for order fulfillment: robots delivering shelves of inventory to people working as pick-and-packers. He asked Wurman, his former MIT roommate, and NCSU professor, for software advice. Together, they decided on a centralized software architecture to wirelessly command the robots in real time. D’Andrea joined the company then known as Distrobot to develop the motion layer.
Mountz holds more than 60 U.S. patents. In 2012, Fast Company magazine ranked Kiva Systems as one of the most innovative companies in the world for their game-changing solutions using mobile robotics. He is a member of MIT’s School of Engineering Dean’s Advisory Council.
Wurman earned his bachelor of science degree in mechanical engineering at MIT and his master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and computer science and doctorate in computer science at the University of Michigan. Named on more than 60 U.S. patents, Wurman is director of Sony AI America.
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