Our office was retained by Dr. Z to prepare and file a self sponsored National Interest Waiver petition. The I-140 petition was filed with USCIS on 5/6/2012 and approved by USCIS on 12/17/2012. Since Dr. Z’s priority date is current Dr. Z is eligible to file for Adjustment of Status.
Here is a brief summary of Dr. Z’s qualifying work:
Dr. Z’s research focuses on investigating and eradicating disease causing pathogenic bacteria. Bacteria result in some of the most deadly diseases that affect both humans and animals alike including tuberculosis, anthrax, typhoid cholera, and food poisoning. Recent reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and other scientific research organizations demonstrate a rising trend in resistance to antibiotics worldwide. Despite continued research, few new antibiotics have been approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within the last decade. This should be a cause for great concern especially given the significant rise/emergence in drug resistant strains of bacteria and the health impact on the human society. One way of curbing this trend is to boost scientific research directed at elucidating current resistance mechanisms which in turn leads to the development of more efficacious antibiotics.
Dr. Z’s current research seeks to provide answers to these problems. It involves investigating new biological pathways within pathogenic bacteria and rationally designing, developing, and analyzing candidate antibiotics that target these pathways. An example of such a pathway is the trans-translation pathway. This pathway is present in all bacteria but is absent in humans and appears to be a valid novel drug target based on Dr. Z’s research to date. Using a combination of chemical, biochemical, and microbiology techniques, he has analyzed compounds which reveal significant improvement in potency among some of the deadliest of bacterial strains including M. tuberculosis, TB causing agent and B. anthracis, and anthrax causing agent (Exhibit G). These candidate antibiotics also appear to have a broad spectrum of activity against both Gram positive and negative strains as well as drug resistant strains of bacteria. Based on these results, Dr. Z has put forth a provisional patent (Exhibit H) for these new compounds and projects possible new compounds with antibiotic capacity for his future work. By developing new drugs with high efficacy, Dr. Z provides insurance for swift action against an outbreak, be it naturally occurring or intentional bio-warfare.