Kathryn L. Hester, Ph.D.

Kathryn L. Hester, Ph.D., is a patent agent registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Kathryn focuses on patent prosecution including: reviewing invention disclosures, drafting United States and PCT patent applications, responding to official actions before the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and interviewing cases in the USPTO. She provides strategic and tactical patent counseling to clients that include start-up biotechnology companies as well as universities and large pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies.

Kathryn’s technological focus includes all areas of biotechnology, including molecular biology, cell biology, glycobiology, biochemistry, developmental biology, immunology, microbiology, virology, and genetics; pharmaceutical compositions; molecular diagnostics and techniques; medical devices and equipment; and the chemical and mechanical arts.

Bar Admissions 
  • Registered to practice before the United States Patent and Trademark Office
Education 
  • University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., with honors, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
  • Southern Nazarene University, B.S., summa cum laude, Chemistry
Awards 

Kathryn graduated from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her graduate studies, which were funded by a STAR Graduate Fellowship from the United States Environmental Protection Agency, focused on the regulation of gene expression, and in particular, the proteins involved in catabolite repression control of enzymes involved in amino acid metabolism (the bkd operons) in Pseudomonas putida and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Six publications resulted from her graduate work, including several papers in the Journal of Bacteriology and the European Journal of Biochemistry and chapters in Methods in Enzymology and Biochemistry and Physiology of Thiamin-Diphosphate Enzymes.

Publications 
  • Hester KL, Luo J, Sokatch JR. Purification of Pseudomonas putida branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase E1 component. Methods Enzymol. 324:129-38 (2000). 
  • Hester KL, Madhusudhan KT, Sokatch JR. Catabolite repression control by crc in 2xYT medium is mediated by posttranscriptional regulation of bkdR expression in Pseudomonas putida. J Bacteriol. 182(4):1150-3 (2000). 
  • Hester KL, Lehman J, Najar F, Song L, Roe BA, MacGregor CH, Hager PW, Phibbs PV Jr, Sokatch JR. Crc is involved in catabolite repression control of the bkd operons of Pseudomonas putida and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. J Bacteriol. 182(4):1144-9 (2000). 
  • Madhusudhan KT, Hester KL, Friend V, Sokatch JR. Transcriptional activation of the bkd operon of Pseudomonas putida by BkdR. J Bacteriol. 179(6):1992-7 (1997). 
  • Hester, KL, Luo, J, Sokatch, JR. An unusual translation of the beta-subunit of Pseudomonas putida branched-chain keto acid dehydrogenase. H. Bisswanger and A. Schellenberger (Eds). In Biochemistry and Physiology of thiamin-diphosphate enzymes. pp. 374-381 (1996). 
  • Hester K, Luo J, Burns G, Braswell EH, Sokatch JR. Purification of active E1 alpha 2 beta 2 of Pseudomonas putida branched-chain-oxoacid dehydrogenase. Eur J Biochem. 233(3):828-36 (1995).
Organizations 
  • American Association for the Advancement of Science 
  • American Society for Microbiology 
  • American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 
  • American Chemical Society 
  • American Intellectual Property Law Association 
  • Intellectual Property Section of the Oklahoma Bar Association, Associate Member
Kathryn L. Hester, Ph.D.
Patent Agent
405.607.8620