Joseph
Joseph DeSimone, Ph.D., William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State
University, is a leading researcher in materials science, especially as it pertains to the translation of breakthroughs in the basic sciences into practical applications. DeSimone has published nearly 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles and has almost 100 patents in his name. In 2005 DeSimone was elected into the National Academy of Engineering and the
American
Academy
of Arts and Sciences. He is Director of the NSF STC and Director of the Institute for Advanced Materials, Nanoscience and Technology. Dr. DeSimone was Chairman (1996-2003) and co-founder of Micell Technologies, Inc, a company which pioneered the highly celebrated CO2 dry cleaning technology to replace the undesirable solvent perchloroethylene. DeSimone’s efforts have won recognition from many: ACS Award for Creative Invention.In 2002, DeSimone, along with
Richard Stack ,
Bill Starling ,
Michael Williams, and
Bob Langer partnered with SyneCor, to co-found Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions (BVS) to commercialize a fully bioabsorbable, drug-eluting stent. In 2001, DeSimone began collaborations with
Drs. Juliano and Samulski from the
School
of
Medicine
and
Gene
Therapy
Center
at UNC to explore the use of inverse microemulsion polymerization techniques to generate nano-particles for gene and antisense delivery (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2002, 124, 15198). In 2002 DeSimone colaborated with Steve Quake at Caltech/Stanford focused on the development of curable liquid fluoropolymers (aka “Liquid Teflon”) for use in microfluidic devices. (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2004, 43, 5796). In 2005 DeSimone reported (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 10096) a breakthrough called PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates).DeSimone recently launched Liquidia Technologies (www.liquidia.com) along with two of his former students (Dr’s
Jason Rolland and Ben Maynor), to commercialize the use in micro- and nano-fluidics, soft lithography and nano-fabrication of colloidal particles (drug/gene delivery, etc), and displays.
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