R. Wilson "Trey" Powers III, Ph.D.

R. Wilson “Trey” Powers III, Ph.D., is a director in Sterne Kessler’s Trial & Appellate and Biotechnology & Chemical Practice Groups. Trey also co-chairs the firm’s PTAB Trials practice. He has served as counsel on about one hundred inter partes review and post-grant review proceedings and has extensive experience litigating before the U.S. Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).

Trey also specializes in the interface between district court litigation and PTAB proceedings, having successfully delivered jury verdicts for his clients well into the eight figures as part of a comprehensive enforcement strategy. He also assists clients with U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) investigations under §337, evaluates patent portfolios, drafts patent applications, and prosecutes interferences, as well as other intellectual property strategic advice.

Trey has significant technical experience in the fields of aging, surgery, stem cell biology, microbiology, metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, and other areas of biotechnology.

Trey earned his B.A. in biology from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. There, he developed high-throughput assays for measuring the life span of eukaryotic cells. Screens carried out using these methods led Trey and his colleagues to discover that reduction in TOR pathway signaling is one mechanism by which caloric restriction extends life span. These findings were published in the Science and Genes and Development journals. Ongoing work in several labs has confirmed that the methods identified by Trey extend the life span in mammals.