Innovating to serve the world: UCLA researchers elected to National Academy of Inventors

Innovation is woven into the DNA of UCLA, where researchers are working each day to address the world's most pressing challenges and translate breakthrough ideas into technologies and products that save lives, improve society and drive economic growth. This year's election of two new faculty members to the National Academy of Inventors highlights the strength of that mission.

Maher El-Kady, whose work on energy solutions promises a cleaner, more sustainable and more accessible energy future, and Dr. Dennis Slamon, whose groundbreaking innovations in breast cancer treatment have benefited millions around the globe, today join more than 30 other UCLA researchers who have received the honor - the highest professional distinction awarded to inventors.

"NAI fellows are a driving force within the innovation ecosystem, and their contributions across scientific disciplines are shaping the future of our world," the academy's president, Dr. Paul R. Sanberg, said in a press release. "We are thrilled to welcome this year's class of fellows to the academy. They are truly an impressive cohort."

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El-Kady and Slamon are among 169 U.S. fellows representing 40 states across 127 research universities and governmental and nonprofit research institutions elected this year, along with 16 international fellows. The academy's medal ceremony will take place in June 2026 in Los Angeles.

Maher El-Kady
Assistant researcher, UCLA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

The Bruin alumnus, a native of Egypt who earned his doctorate at UCLA in 2013, first made headlines as a graduate student when he and UCLA chemistry professor Richard Kaner unveiled a deceptively simple and inexpensive way to create laser-scribed graphene - essentially turning a standard DVD burner into a machine that could etch high-performance energy storage devices called micro-supercapacitors.

► Video: El-Kady and Kaner describe their supercapacitor breakthrough on "Nova."

That hack led to further advances by El-Kady and his colleagues across chemistry, materials science, engineering and biology, with the creation of graphene-based batteries and supercapacitors that were ever-more flexible, powerful and fast-charging - with applications in areas ranging from wearable tech and consumer electronics to health care and electric vehicles.

Among those many innovations have been a "biological supercapacitor" powered by the body's own electrolytes that could extend the operational life and efficacy of pacemakers and other implanted devices; a solar-powered technology that can produce hydrogen fuel in a sustainable, environmentally friendly way; a quarter-sized motion sensor and power generator that could help save the lives of firefighters; and even a tiny device that creates electricity from falling snow.

In 2014, El-Kady and Kaner helped co-found Nanotech Energy, a startup designed to bring their innovations from the laboratory to the marketplace. As the company's chief technology officer, El-Kady has developed energy storage systems that are not only more powerful but significantly safer - an essential step for everything from e-vehicles to grid-scale renewable energy storage. In 2022, the Nanotech team was honored with the Innovation Award at the Consumer Electronics Show for their Organolyte graphene-based batteries, which utilize a patented nonflammable electrolyte technology that provides a safer and more powerful alternative to fire-prone lithium-ion batteries.

Most recently, El-Kady has helped to significantly improve the performance of a common electroconductive plastic used in touch screens, organic solar cells and electrochemical devices, and his team is exploring zinc-based batteries as a safer, more powerful and more sustainable option to lithium-ion batteries.

For his work turning science into technologies with real-world societal impact, El-Kady was recognized by Chemical & Engineering News as one of 2022's "Talented Twelve," by the journal Energy Storage Materials with the 2024 Young Scientist Award and by CIO Look magazine as one of 2025's 10 most influential leaders in e-mobility.

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Dr. Dennis Slamon
Professor and chief of hematology-oncology, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA
Director of clinical and translational research at the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center

Few scientific breakthroughs have reshaped cancer treatment as dramatically as the work of Dr. Dennis Slamon, whose basic and clinical research led to the development of the game-changing drug Herceptin for women with HER2-positive breast cancer and paved the way for lifesaving targeted therapies that have followed.

Long before "precision medicine" became a buzzword, Slamon was convinced that cancer treatments should target the genetic mutations that drive the disease rather than focusing solely on sites in the body where the cancer was located. His discovery in the late 1980s that a gene called HER2was linked to an especially aggressive form of breast cancer presented an opportunity to test his philosophy using a new monoclonal antibody called Herceptin.

Slamon launched the first human clinical trial of Herceptin at UCLA in 1990, and in 1998, the drug was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Since then, nearly 3.5 million women have been treated, with ongoing research showing the drug boosts survival rates by more than 50%. Today, roughly 1 in 5 breast cancer patients - about 340,000 women worldwide every year - receive a diagnosis that Herceptin can help transform.

► Video: Dennis Slamon and collaborators on how targeted cancer therapies have saved lives.

Slamon's trailblazing didn't stop with Herceptin. He has continued to develop groundbreaking treatments for other breast cancer subtypes, including palbociclib, approved by the FDA in 2015 for advanced ER-positive, HER2-negative disease, and ribociclib, approved in 2024 for early-stage HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer.

Just as importantly, his paradigm-shifting approach to cancer treatment helped usher in a new of era research focused on targeting specific gene alterations, leading to the development of targeted therapies like Tukysa, Nerlynx, Tykerb and Avastin by other investigators.

Slamon's contributions to biomedical research have earned him some of the highest scientific honors in oncology and medicine, including the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award, the Szent-Györgyi Prize for Progress in Cancer Research from the National Foundation for Cancer Research, the Sjöberg Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and Sweden's Sjöberg Foundation, the American Cancer Society's Medal of Honor for Clinical Research, and the Canada Gairdner International Award. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.