Richard Meagher, Distinguished Research Professor of Genetics in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, has founded numerous biotechnology companies based on patented research and technology developed in his UGA laboratory. Meagher was honored as the Inventor of the Year in 2004 for the development of DiSH, an innovative method enabling the rapid detection and production of monoclonal antibodies, and continues to contribute to the UGA research enterprise through a number of different lines of research, including most recently the development of a method of isolating a subset of fat cells to help understand why these specific cells contribute to obesity-related diseases