Adam M. Breier, PhD

Tackling the most challenging technology in your patent portfolio

Adam M. Breier, PhD, focuses on patent prosecution, client counseling, and PTAB proceedings in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical areas. He coordinates global prosecution strategies, prepares domestic and foreign patent applications, performs freedom-to-operate, patentability, invalidity, and noninfringement analyses, and participates in post-grant administrative trials such as inter partes reviews. In his role as practice management partner, Adam provides leadership to the firm in areas including client engagement, conflicts of interest, and substantive patent law and procedures.

Adam has a special interest in subject matter including biochemical and biophysical analytical compositions, methods, and apparatuses; polymer chemistry; engineered or recombinant DNA, RNA, and proteins; and genetically modified cells. He also has prosecution experience with new chemical entities and with compositions and formulations in which hydrophobic or amphipathic materials such as lipids, polymers, or surfactants provide new and useful features. Adam has worked with domestic and foreign clients, including research institutions, startups, and established biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and chemical companies.

Adam joined McNeill Baur with 12 years of research experience in molecular biology, genomics, and chemistry and 7 years of patent experience at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner, LLP. Recognizing his legal skills and client management expertise, Adam was promoted to partner at McNeill Baur in 2019. His biological experience includes studying DNA replication and the cell cycle in Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Escherichia coli, and Bacillus subtilis. The work examined how cells choose where to begin the process of copying their chromosomes; how they coordinate the process; the mechanisms they use to respond to problems with replication; and how they make sure each daughter cell receives its copy of the genome. Adam’s chemical and physical experience includes studying the effects of antioxidants on synaptic membranes in a model of neuronal oxidative stress, and data analysis for genomic, single molecule fluorescence, and optical tweezers experiments on replicating chromosomes and protein-DNA complexes.

Select Publications

“Reviving Lapsed Patents: Differences Across Jurisdictions and Suggestions for Harmonization,” Bloomberg, Aug. 9, 2010 (coauthor).

“Dynamic Association of the Replication Initiator and Transcription Factor DnaA with the Bacillus subtilis Chromosome During Replication Stress,”  Journal of Bacteriology, 2008 (coauthor).

“Whole-Genome Analysis of the Chromosome Partitioning and Sporulation Protein Spo0J (ParB) Levels Spreading and Origin-Distal Sites on the Bacillus subtilis Chromosome,” Molecular Microbiology, 2007 (coauthor).

“Independence of Replisomes in Escherichia coli Chromosomal Replication,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2005 (coauthor).

“Prediction of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Replication Origins,” Genome Biology, 2005 (coauthor).

“Linear Ordering and Dynamic Segregation of the Bacterial Chromosome,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2004 (coauthor).