Dr. Nicholas A. Peppas.
SHORT BIOGRAPHY
Nicholas A. Peppas is the Cockrell Family Regents Chaired Professor in the Departments of Chemical, Biomedical Engineering, Pediatrics and Surgery in the Dell Medical School, and Molecular Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery Pharmacy in the College of Pharmacy, and Director of the Institute of Biomaterials, Drug Delivery and Regenerative Medicine of the University of Texas at Austin. His work in biomaterials, drug delivery, regenerative medicine and bionanotechnology follows a multidisciplinary approach by blending modern molecular and cellular biology with engineering principles to design the next-generation of medical systems and devices for patient treatment. Over the past 43 years he has set the fundamentals and rational design of drug delivery systems and developed models of drug and protein diffusion in controlled release devices and biological tissues. In 2012 he received the Founders Award of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), the highest recognition of the Academy, for these contributions to the field. In 2018, he received the Adam Yarmolinsky Award from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the highest recognition of the Academy, for his contributions to the academy and the field.
Dr. Peppas is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, the National Academy of France, the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Spain, the Academy of Athens (Greece), the International Academy of Biomedical Engineering and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Sciences of Texas.
He has been recognized with awards from the Americal Chemical Society (the Herman Mark award), AIChE (Founders Award, William Walker Award, Institute Lecture, Jay Bailey Award, Bioengineering Award, Materials Award), the Biomedical Engineering Society (Distinguished Scientist Award), the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (Galletti Award), the Society for Biomaterials (Founders, Clemson and Hall Awards), the Controlled Release Society (Founders, Heller and Eurand Awards) and other societies. He has also received the Maurice Marie Janot Award from APGI, the Giulio Natta Award from Italy, the Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal, and the Inaugural ward for Nanotechnology.
In 2008, AIChE named him one of the “One Hundred Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era”.
He has been President of the International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering, Chair of the Engineering Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and Chair of the Council of BME Chairs. Previously, he served also as President of SFB and the Controlled Release Society.
He is the Deputy Editor of “Science Advances” and the Editor-in-Chief of “Regenerative Biomaterials”.
He is a fellow of AAAS, AIChE, APS, ACS, MRS, SFB, BMES, AIMBE, CRS, AAPS, and ASEE. He has supervised the research of 110 PhDs and more than 950 scientists at all levels, including visiting scientists from 32 countries, in his laboratory in 43 years.
Peppas is the founder of five biotech companies and has consulted for about 80 international companies.
Peppas holds a Dipl. Eng. from the National Technical University of Athens (1971), a Sc.D. from MIT (1973), and honorary doctorates from the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Parma (Italy), Athens (Greece), Ljubljana (Slovenia, Patras (Greece), and the National Technical University of Athens (Greece), and on May 8, 2019 he will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain). He has also received honorary professorships from Sichuan University, Chengdu and Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, the PLA Hospital and Medical School in Beijing and the Beihang University in Beijing. On May 27, 2019 he will be appointed an honorary professor at the Northwestern Polytecnic University in Xi’an, China.
Professor Peppas is a good-will ambassador for the fields of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical/biological materials and has served as a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Paris-Sud (Orsay), Parma, Pavia, Naples, Berlin (Free University), Santiago de Compostela, Complutense (Madrid), Hoshi (Tokyo), Hacettepe (Ankara), Athens, Hebrew (Jerusalem), Nanyang (Singapore) and California Institute of Technology.