Lawyer Bio : Bernard A. Brown, II, Ph.D.

Bernie is a patent attorney in Womble Carlyle’s Biotechnology/Chemical/ Pharmaceutical Patent Practice Group. His practice includes preparing and prosecuting U.S. and foreign patent applications, reexaminations, freedom to operate analyses, invalidity, and non-infringement opinions. In particular, he assists clients with patent matters relating to biochemistry, immunology, molecular biology, and chemistry and technologies in the biotechnological, chemical, and pharmaceutical fields.

 

Bernie has an extensive research background that he now puts to work on behalf of clients. He received his bachelor and doctoral degrees from North Carolina State University. His doctoral thesis involved generating monoclonal antibodies that recognized multi-stranded DNA complexes. He received a patent based on this research, which prompted his interest in patent law.

 

As a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bernie investigated proteins that recognized left-handed “Z-DNA” and “Z-RNA” using biophysical methods and X-ray crystallography.

 

Before entering the legal field, Bernie was an Assistant Professor of biochemistry and chemistry in the chemistry department at Wake Forest University. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate biochemistry and chemistry, Bernie managed a research lab that was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society. He and his research associates used a variety of biochemical techniques and X-ray crystallography to investigate protein-RNA interactions in ribosomal RNA modification and ribosome assembly. Bernie has published more than 20 scientific articles and book chapters and given many life sciences-related presentations.

 

During law school, Bernie continued to be active in scientific research as a Senior Scientist in the Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry at North Carolina State University.