Ron Orlando, Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Chemistry and a member of the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, won this year's Georgia BioBusiness Academic Entrepreneur of the Year Award. The award was presented at this year's 31st Annual University of Georgia Research Foundation Awards Banquet, which was held at the Athens Country Club on Thursday March 18. Orlando was honored for his 2007 founding of the company BioInquire, LLC, a bioinformatics software development company, along with co-founders Rick Tarleton, James Atwood and Brent Weatherly. BioInquire provides software for cataloging, analyzing and mining the products of mass spectrometric analysis. It provides tools for researchers who need to make biological sense of the mass amounts of information resulting from mass spectrometry measurements on complex proteins and carbohydrates. A key aspect of Orlando's contribution to the fledgling company was fundraising; he was able to obtain grants totaling $1.4 million so that the company could get started without having to take out loans. Ron was instrumental in every aspect of the company's start-up, and he has been sharing his new-found experience with other promising entrepreneurs around campus.
