Samir Mitragotri
Guest Editor for this issue of MRS Bulletin
University of California, Santa Barbara, USA; email samir@engineering.ucsb.edu.
Mitragotri is a professor of chemical engineering and director for the Center for Bioengineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He received a BS degree from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai and a PhD degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His research is focused on the field of drug delivery, and he has developed a number of technologies for transdermal, oral, and nanoparticle-based drug delivery systems. He has over 160 publications and is an inventor on dozens of issued and pending US patents. Mitragotri is an elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Association of Advancement of Science, and the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. Mitragotri’s awards include the American Institute of Chemical Engineering’s Allan P. Colburn Award (2005), the Controlled Release Society’s Young Investigator Award (2008), and the Technology Review Young Innovator Award (1999).
Patrick Stayton
Guest Editor for this issue of MRS Bulletin
Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, USA; tel. 206-685-8148; and email stayton@uw.edu.
Stayton is a professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. He earned a PhD degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois–Champaign in 1989. His research interests include nanomedicine/nanotechnology, molecular engineering, molecular imaging, and targeted drug delivery. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, has received the Controlled Release Society CRS-Cygnus Recognition Award, and the Honorary Award from the Minority Science Engineering Program.
Jason Bugno
University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA; email jbugno2@uic.edu.
Bugno received a BS degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2010. He is a third-year PharmD/PhD student at UIC in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, currently working in Seungpyo Hong’s laboratory.
Kuiwon Choi
Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; email choi@kist.re.kr.
Choi is currently the head of the Biomedical Research Institute at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. He received a PhD degree from the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Michigan in 1991. He has served as the president of the Korean Society of Biomechanics and as the chief editor of the Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research. His current research interests include bioengineering, rehabilitation engineering, and development of nano-biomaterials, including theranostic nanoparticles.
Seungpyo Hong
Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences, College of Pharmacy, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA; tel. 312-413-8294; and email sphong@uic.edu.
Hong is an assistant professor in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He graduated from Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea, with BS and MS degrees in polymer engineering in 1999 and 2001, respectively. In 2006, he received a PhD degree from the University of Michigan. Hong then joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a postdoc in Robert Langer’s laboratory. Since 2008, he has led a research group at UIC with a major research theme of “Biomimetic Nanotechnology.” He has published over 45 peer-reviewed articles, 4 book chapters, and has 10 issued or pending patents.
Hao-Jui Hsu
University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA; email hhsu24@uic.edu.
Hsu received a MS degree in pharmaceutical sciences from the National Taiwan University in 2007, and then worked for Orient Pharma Co., Ltd., before he joined the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences in 2011. He is currently a PhD candidate in Seungpyo Hong’s group. His research currently focuses on the development of dendron-based micelles for targeted cancer therapy. He has co-authored five peer-reviewed articles since 2007.
Namho Kim
Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; email nkim@kist.re.kr.
Kim is currently a research scientist at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. He lived in the United States for 12 years, and he returned to Seoul upon receiving a MS degree in 2010 at Purdue University. He also has a BS degree in bioengineering from Lehigh University. His current main research focus is in siRNA delivery methods and novel biomaterials.
Ick Chan Kwon
Center for Theragnosis, Biomedical Research Institute, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; tel. +82 2 958 5912; and email ikwon@kist.re.kr.
Kwon is a principal research scientist at the Center for Theragnosis at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology. He received a PhD degree in pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Utah in 1993. He serves as the president of the Korean Society of Molecular Imaging, as an Asian editor of the Journal of Controlled Release, and as a member of several editorial boards. His current research interests include targeted drug delivery with polymeric nanoparticles and the development of smart nano-platforms for theranosis.
Joerg Lahann
Biointerfaces Institute, Biomedical Engineering and Macromolecular Science and Engineering, University of Michigan, USA, and Institute of Functional Interfaces, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany; tel. +1-734-763-7543; and email lahann@umich.edu.
Lahann is a professor of chemical engineering and the inaugural director of the Biointerfaces Institute at the University of Michigan, and co-director of the Institute of Functional Interfaces at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers, the author of more than 140 publications, and the inventor or co-inventor on more than 25 patents or patent applications.
Ryan M. Pearson
University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA; email rpears2@uic.edu.
Pearson is a PhD candidate in the group of Seungpyo Hong in the Department of Biopharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He received a BS degree in chemical engineering from UIC in 2008. His research currently focuses on studying the interactions of dendrimers and dendron-based micelles at the nanoscale. Since 2009, he has co-authored eight peer-reviewed articles and two book chapters.
Sahar Rahmani
Biointerfaces Institute and Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan, USA; email rahmani@umich.edu.
Rahmani received BSE and MSE degrees from the Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Michigan in 2010 and 2011, respectively. She is currently a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering under the guidance of Joerg Lahann at the University of Michigan. Her research focuses on the fabrication and characterization of multifunctional carrier systems for theranostic applications.
Shiladitya Sengupta
Laboratory of Nanomedicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA; tel. 617-768-8994; and email shiladit@mit.edu.
Sengupta is the director of the Laboratory of Nanomedicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and assistant professor of Medicine and HST at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory focuses on the development of novel nanoparticles inspired by a mechanistic understanding of tumor progression. His early training was at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. He received a PhD degree from the University of Cambridge as a Nehru Scholar. His fellowship was in biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has received the TR35 Innovator Award and the Era of Hope Scholar Award.
Sohee Son
Center for Theragnosis, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; email shson@kist.re.kr.
Son is currently a postdoctoral research fellow at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology in the Center for Theragnosis. She obtained her PhD degree in the Department of Pharmacy at the Sungkyunkwan University in 2011 in the field of protein drug engineering and pharmacokinetic-pharmacodynamic modeling for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes. Her current research focuses on the development of peptide/protein-based nanocarrier systems for cancer therapy and diagnosis.
Ji Young Yhee
Center for Theragnosis, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea; email yhee@kist.re.kr.
Yhee is currently conducting postdoctoral research at the Center for Theragnosis at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology under the supervision of Ick Chan Kwon and Kwangmeyung Kim. She received a PhD degree from the Department of Veterinary Pathology at Konkuk University under the guidance of Jung-Hyang Sur. Her current research interests include targeted drug and gene delivery with natural polymer-based nanoparticles and an understanding of the cancer microenvironment.
