Julie A. Heider is an associate with Foley & Lardner and a member of the firm's Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Practice. Dr. Heider manages a docket of cases for several major biotechnology clients, prepares and files documents relating to procurement of U.S. and foreign patents and provides prosecution strategy advice. She is also involved in the preparation of patent non-infringement and invalidity opinions. She has extensive experience in drafting and prosecuting applications and assisting in patent portfolio evaluation as it relates to licensing and acquisitions in the fields of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Foley, Dr. Heider worked as a student associate and patent agent at Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox, P.L.L.C. She worked as a research assistant in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University, where she produced and analyzed DNA data to determine evolutionary relationships of many primate species and collaborated with zoos and primate facilities all over the world to identify primate species genetically for breeding programs.
Dr. Heider earned her J.D. from the George Washington University Law School (2007). She received her Ph.D. in molecular biology from Princeton University (2002), where she was the recipient of an honorable mention from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She attended Mount Holyoke College, where she earned her A.B. in biology (with high honors, 1994). She was a member of the Sigma Xi Honor Society, received a Howard Hughes Undergraduate Research Fellowship, University of Arizona Winter Term Fellowship, and Bronze Congressional Award.
While at Princeton, Dr. Heider performed research on Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) and specifically on the creation of a rationally designed temperature-sensitive mutant HCMV, mutated in the immediate-early 2 gene, as well as the effects of phosphorylation on the immediate-early 2 protein.
Dr. Heider is a member of the American Bar Association and is admitted to practice in Illinois and before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
Publications:
- Co-author: "The Blurry Biotech Line," IP Law & Business (June, 2005)
- Co-author: "So What Exactly is Human? When Our DNA Blends with that of Other Beasts, New Creatures Vex the Patent Office," Legal Times (June 20, 2005)
- Co-author: "Chimeras: Patently Immoral? The Debate Over Beings with Mixed Genetic Components Rages On," The National Law Journal (June 13, 2005)
- Co-author: "Construction of a rationally designed human cytomegalovirus variant encoding a temperature-sensitive immediate-early 2 protein,"Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (2002)
- Co-author: "Characterization of a human cytomegalovirus with phosphorylation site mutations in the immediate early 2 protein," J. Virol(2002)
- Co-author: "Gibbon phylogeny inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences," Amer. J. of Physical Anthropology (1996)