Chemist Joseph DeSimone has won a prestigious award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aimed at encouraging “high-risk” research and innovation.
DeSimone has been selected for a Pioneer Award, one of only 18 such honors handed out this year.
Two professors in the UNC School of Medicine -- Klaus Hahn and Mark Zylka, are receiving T-RO1 awards, a new award designed to encourage bold new ideas.
The three researchers’ grants are among 115 awards worth $348 million announced Sept. 24 by the NIH to encourage investigators to explore bold ideas that have the potential to catapult fields forward and speed the translation of research into improved health.
The Pioneer Award supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose pioneering -- and possibly transforming approaches -- to major challenges in biomedical and behavioral research. Awards are for up to $500,000 per year for five years.
DeSimone, Chancellor's Eminent Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, will use the award to develop new methods for delivering promising biological therapeutics — such as proteins, antibodies and nucleic acids — to specific locations in the body in a safe and effective fashion.
Such methods and therapies could be used to treat many different diseases, including cancer, autoimmune, inflammatory, metabolic, cardiovascular, ophthalmologic and numerous infectious diseases, as well as neurological disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and for the treatment of pain. The research will build on DeSimone’s existing work, including his invention of techniques for mass-producing “custom made” micro- and nanoparticles tailored to have specific sizes, shapes and surface properties. That technology, know as PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates), is exclusively licensed to Liquidia Technologies, a UNC spin-off company based in Research Triangle Park.
Along with his appointment in the college, DeSimone is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center and the pharmacology department in the School of Medicine; the founding director of the UNC Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology, and the UNC Institute for Nanomedicine; and co-principal investigator of the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. He is also William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University.
