Benjamin D. Atkins, Ph.D.

Ben employs his extensive life sciences experience to effectively serve a wide range of the firm’s clients, including established biotechnology companies, startups, and academic institutions. His work focuses on the drafting and strategic prosecution of patent applications across a wide variety of technologies, including large molecule therapeutics, diagnostics, cancer biology, immunotherapies, molecular biology, and protein engineering. He also assists with portfolio management, patentability assessments, and freedom-to-operate analyses.

Prior to joining the firm, Ben completed his doctoral work in David Pellman’s laboratory at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. His research investigated the coordination between cell polarity and cell division in eukaryotes. In particular, he worked to obtain mechanistic understanding of the cell cycle regulation of the Rho GTPase Cdc42, a highly conserved master regulator of cell polarity, as well as the function of Cdc42 during cytokinesis, the final step in cell division. During his scientific training, Ben developed broad technical expertise in cell and molecular biology approaches, classical and modern yeast genetics, microscopy, and biochemistry, and received a deep exposure to cancer cell biology.

Ben has co-authored original research articles and review articles in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Cell Biology and Current Biology.