Karen Surabian, J.D. M.B.A.

Karen T. Surabian, J.D., M.B.A. is a Senior Licensing and Patenting Manager in the Technology Transfer Office (TTO) at the National Human Genome Research Institute.  She joined TTO in September 2023.  Prior to that she was at the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Office of Technology Transfer and Development (OTTAD).

Karen is involved with the larger NIH, CDC, and FDA technology transfer community through various volunteer working groups and other projects.  She has previously worked in other NIH technology transfer offices.  She was at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Office (TTIPO) as part of the CDC Team.  Prior to joining NIAID TTIPO in 2015 Karen worked as a licensing and patenting manager as part of the CDC Unit at the NIH Office of Technology Transfer (OTT) and also completed her M.B.A.  After completing her J.D., she was a technology transfer specialist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Technology Transfer Center (TTC) (Frederick Unit) as a Cancer Research Training Award (CRTA) fellow.  While completing her J.D. she was at an academic technology transfer office. 

Before working in technology transfer, Karen completed her B.S. in Cell Molecular Biology and Genetics at the University of Maryland, College Park and then worked in a protein biochemistry lab.