Biographies - Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnerships
 Mansoor M. Amiji, Ph.D.
James Baker Jr., M.D.
Panos Fatouros, Ph.D.
Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.
Tayyaba Hasan, Ph.D.
Kattesh V. Katti, Ph.D.
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Chun Li, Ph.D.
Scott Manalis, Ph.D.
Allan Oseroff, M.D., Ph.D.
Paras Prasad, Ph.D.
Jan Schnitzer, M.D.
Miqin Zhang, Ph.D.
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Mansoor M. Amiji, Ph.D.
Professor and Associate Department Chairman, Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy
Bouve College of Health Sciences
Northeastern University
Mansoor M. Amiji is a Professor and Associate Department Chairman in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, School of Pharmacy, Bouve College of Health Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dr. Amiji received his undergraduate degree in pharmacy (magna cum laude) from Northeastern University in the 1988 and a doctoral degree in pharmaceutics from Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN in the summer of 1992. Dr. Amiji returned to Northeastern University as an Assistant Professor in January of 1993. He received tenure and was promoted to Associate Professor in 1999. During a sabbatical leave in 2000, Dr. Amiji worked at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Professor Robert Langer’s lab.
Dr. Amiji’s research focuses on polymeric technologies for delivery of drugs and genes to specific target sites in the body, nanotechnology for medical diagnosis and therapy, and development of biocompatible materials. He has published over 70 peer-reviewed publications, eight book chapters, and is an author of the books Applied Physical Pharmacy (McGraw-Hill, 2002) and “Polymeric Gene Delivery: Principles and Applications” (CRC Press, 2004). He also holds or has applied for several U.S. patents on polymeric technologies. He provides intellectual consulting services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies. Dr. Amiji’s research is funded by the National Institutes of Health, biotechnology and medical device companies, and private foundations. Dr. Amiji has received a number of awards including the citation in Who’s Who in Science and Engineering (1996) and the third prize of the Eurand Award for Outstanding Research in Oral Drug Delivery (2003).
James Baker, Jr., M.D.
Ruth Dow Doan Professor
Professor of Internal Medicine
Director, Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine & Biological Sciences
University of Michigan
Dr. Baker completed his undergraduate education at Williams College in Williamstown, MA and his medical education at Loyola-Strich School of Medicine in Maywood, IL. After an internship and internal medicine residency at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., he completed an Allergy and Clinical Immunology Fellowship, also at Walter Reed and at NIAID. In 1988, Dr. Baker was appointed as Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine and Surgery at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Science. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in 1989 as an Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Allergy. In 1991, he was appointed Associate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Michigan and became the Director of the Histocompatibility Laboratory in that Department. In 1993, Dr. Baker was appointed as Chief of the Division of Allergy in the Department of Internal Medicine. He was promoted to Professor of Medicine on 17 May 1996.
Dr. Baker’s research is in several aspects of host defense mechanism and immunologic diseases. He has been funded by a series of grants from NIAID, DARPA and the NCI. He has spoken about his research at a number of international meetings, corporations, and universities. Recently he has been involved in work concerning gene transfer and drug delivery. These studies have produced new vector systems for gene transfer using dendritic polymers and have the potential to revolutionize pharmaceutical therapy. Dr. Baker’s work with synthetic lipid and polymeric nanostructures has resulted in the development of a new class of antimicrobial agents with activity against bacteria, spores, fungi and viruses. These projects have led to two start-up biotechnology companies, NanoBio Corporation and Avidia Therapeutics, located in Ann Arbor, MI. Dr. Baker serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of these Corporations.
In recognition of the success of this research, in July 1998, Dr. Baker was appointed Director of the newly organized Center for Biologic Nanotechnology at the University of Michigan. This center promotes a multidisciplinary approach to study the application of nanomaterials to cellular engineering, drug delivery and gene transfer, and is supported by over $35 million dollars in federal grants and contracts. In June 2001 Dr. Baker was inaugurated as the first recipient of the Ruth Dow Doan Endowed Professorship in Biologic Nanotechnology.
In May, 2001 Dr. Baker was named the Co-Director of the Center for Biomedical Engineering in the School of Engineering. In August 2002, Dr. Baker was appointed Director of Research in the newly created Michigan Bioterorrism and Health Preparedness Research and Training Center in the University's School of Public Health.
In June 2003, Dr. Baker was appointed to serve as a member on the newly formed Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group (N-TAG) of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to the Executive Office of the President of the United States. In September 2004, Dr. Baker was named as one of the three editors of the National Nanotechnology Initiatives’ research directives. Dr. Baker has testified before the U.S. Congress and spoken throughout the world on the topic of Nanotechnology for Medicine and Biology.
Because Dr. Baker has distinguished himself as both a national and international leader in the field of biologic nanotechnology, in October 2001, Dr. Baker was named as the first recipient of the U-M Dean's Innovation Award. This award was given in recognition of faculty who developed innovations that radically improve or transform clinic outcomes, educational processes, or research processes.
In April 2005, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved the formation of the new Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and the Biological Sciences (M-NIMBS) and appointed Dr. Baker as its first Director. Under his leadership, the M-NIMBS will merge academic expertise and institutional resources across the university to develop and market applications for nanotechnology in medicine, the biological sciences and the environment.
Panos Fatouros, Ph.D., FACR
Professor of Radiology
Chair, Division of Radiation Physics & Biology, Department of Radiology
Virginia Commonwealth University
Dr. Fatouros received his post-doctoral degree in the field of Low Temperature Physics from The Ohio State University. After graduation he joined the Department of Radiology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee as a post-doc in Medical Physics under an NIH fellowship. In 1978 he joined the Department of Radiology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia as an Assistant Professor and has been there ever since—rising to the rank of Professor and Chair of the Division of Radiation Physics & Biology.
Dr. Fatouros’ primary research interest has been in the development, validation and clinical application of non-invasive quantitative neuroimaging techniques for studying the pathophysiology of severe head injury in basic animal and human research studies. He has been a key member of a long-running NIH-supported Head Injury Center Grant at VCU. Other current interests include the application of proton spectroscopy for guiding targeted brachytherapy of the prostate and the development and application of imaging techniques for identifying the infiltrative aspects of brain tumors.
As a result of the recently-awarded NIH grant, he will be leading a multidisciplinary team of scientists in the development and application of novel cancer nanotechnology methods for identifying brain tumor cells and selectively targeting them for radiation therapy. This work will use a class of nanoparticles (metallofullerenes, or “buckyballs”) that have been encapsulated with rare earth metals by his co-investigator Harry C. Dorn, Ph.D., and his colleagues at Virginia Tech.
Dr. Fatouros is a Fellow of the American College of Radiology and Deputy Editor of the journal Radiology, the premier international radiological journal. He has co-authored 80 peer-reviewed scientific publications and 36 articles in proceedings, books, and other print media.
Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D.
Professor, Biochemistry
University of California at San Francisco
UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center (Program leader, Mouse Models of Cancer Program)
UCSF Diabetes Center (Member)
Douglas Hanahan, Ph.D., is an American Cancer Society Research Professor in the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, where he is leader of the Mouse Models of Cancer Program in the Comprehensive Cancer Center, and a member of the Diabetes Center. He received a B.S. in Physics from MIT, and a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Harvard, where he was a Harvard Junior Fellow. He worked at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory first as a graduate student and then as a faculty member before moving to UCSF. In the mid-1980’s Hanahan produced some of the first transgenic "oncomice", genetically engineered to develop organ-specific cancers. He has used mouse models of cancer both to investigate the multistage pathways that govern tumor formation and progression, and to explore the benefits of targeted therapies (in particular angiogenesis inhibitors) aimed at different stages of disease progression; he discovered, in collaboration with Judah Folkman, the "angiogenic switch", which is activated to produce new blood vessels in early stage neoplastic lesions preceding overt tumors. He has also used mouse models to investigate parameters of immunological self-tolerance, autoimmunity, and tumor immunity, discovering for example rare "peripheral antigen-expressing" cells in the thymus that contribute to the establishment of self tolerance toward tissue-specific genes such as insulin. As a graduate student Hanahan developed high-efficiency plasmid transformation methods and E. coli strains (e.g. DH5) for DNA cloning procedures that have substantively facilitated molecular genetics research in the life sciences worldwide. A current focus of the Hanahan laboratory is on elucidating the "organogenesis" of tumors, whereby multiple constituent cell types assemble with the overtly transformed cells to form the aberrant, expansive organ-like microenvironments of cancer. Dr. Hanahan has authored ~150 publications, including a number of influential perspectives, notably one coauthored with Judah Folkman on "the angiogenic switch" that is a defining event for most cancers, and another with Bob Weinberg on "the hallmarks of cancer", which presented a conceptual organizing principle for interrelating the genetic and phenotypic complexity of tumors in diverse organs, as different means to the same end, in the form of a common set of acquired capabilities necessary for their manifestation.
Tayyaba Hasan, Ph.D.
Professor of Dermatology, Wellman Center for Photomedicine
Director, Office of Research Career Development
Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Tayyaba Hasan, Ph.D, is Professor of Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Her research focus is on the application of photochemistry-based approaches to biomedical problems and has both basic and translational components. Studies from her laboratory on photodynamic activation of porphyrins have led to an FDA approved treatment for age-related-macular-degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly in the western world.
She is the Program Director of a National Cancer Institute funded multicenter Program Project Grant studying biophysical and photochemical approaches to cancer therapy.
Nationally, she has served or continues to serve on review panels of funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense and the American Cancer Society; internationally she is a reviewer for the Canadian, several European and Singaporean National Research Councils. She is on advisory boards of a number of commercial and academic entities.
Kattesh Katti, Ph.D.
Professor of Radiology & Physics
Senior Research Scientist MU Research Reactor
University of Missouri-Columbia
 Dr. Katti is a Professor of Radiology and Physics and Senior Research Scientist at the University of Missouri Research Reactor. He is the Director of University of Missouri-Columbia Nanoparticles Production Core (NPCF) and the NIH-funded Bioconjugation Core Facility (BCCF). He directs an active interdisciplinary program in Radiopharmaceutical Sciences and Nanomedicine. Dr. Katti has more than 20 years of experience in the application of chemical conjugates for the design and development of pharmaceutical precursors, cancer diagnostic, therapeutic agents, biosensors, functionalized materials and biomaterials derived from non-metals, metals, radiometals and nanometals precursors. He has published more than 130 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is a principal inventor on 14 patents in the chemical, biological, optical and nanotechnological aspects of cancer diagnostic/therapeutic agents and sensors. In the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology, Dr. Katti has discovered novel pathways for the production of nanoparticles of Gold and Silver under biologically benign conditions. His latest work on the development of hybrid nanoparticles has provided impetus to their utility as x-ray contrast agents and in ultrasound imaging. His collaborative effort with staff at the University of Missouri Research Reactor has resulted in the successful production of nanoparticulate beta emitting Gold198 isotope for potential applications in cancer therapy. Dr. Katti received his Ph.D. from the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India (1984). He was a Research Fellow with Atomic Energy, India and an Alexander von Humboldt Scholar (1985-1987) at the University of Gottingen, Germany. He joined the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1990.
As principal investigator of the recently funded Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnership entitled “Hybrid Nanoparticles In Imaging and Therapy of Prostate Cancer” grant, Dr. Katti will provide overall leadership. He will coordinate research and development activities within the interdisciplinary team of scientists working in the Platform Partnership. He will also direct the Nanoparticles Production Core Facility in conjunction with Dr. Kannan and the chief chemist for its overall functioning and unhindered supply of gold nanoparticles to all the investigators, postdoctoral fellows and students involved within the Platform Partnership research program. He will oversee integration of activities among the interdisciplinary research investigators. This will facilitate development of nanoparticles-derived cancer imaging and cancer therapeutic products. He will also coordinate administrative responsibilities, from the award process through preparation of progress reports and other annual renewal documents to data sharing through publication of manuscripts. He will also coordinate handling of all intellectual property with the University of Missouri Office of Technology and Special Projects which handles intellectual property and patents filing issues.
Chun Li, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Experimental Diagnostic Imaging
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
Chun Li, Ph.D., professor and chemist in the Department of Experimental Diagnostic Imaging at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, employs a polymer-based drug delivery system to create novel agents for improved cancer diagnosis and therapy.
He has developed polymer-drug combination nanoparticles to improve anti-tumor efficacy of chemotherapy. Li and colleagues combined a water-soluble polymer and paclitaxel, creating a nanoparticle called PG-TXL. They showed that the formulation is easier and cheaper to administer with less toxicity and better efficacy than conventional paclitaxel. Further research demonstrated that the combined PG-TXL has greater accumulation in tumors than free paclitaxel. PG-TXL is being tested in a number of clinical trials, including a Phase III trial for non-small cell lung cancer.
Li also focuses on developing new radiologic contrast materials and radiopharmaceuticals to enhance imaging. He is principal investigator on the Cancer Nanotechnology Platform Partnership grant titled “Near-Infrared Fluorescence Nanoparticles for Targeted Optical Imaging.” Optical imaging of cancer based on near-infrared fluorescence (NIRF) has several potential advantages over standard imaging techniques: it is extremely sensitive, involves no ionizing radiation, allows real-time visualization, and is inexpensive. At present it is not clinically viable. Li and collaborators at Eastman Kodak are working to create, test, and target well-validated NIRF imaging probes to obtain nanoparticles that are effective and practical for molecular optical imaging of human cancers.
Another research interest for Li, who earned his doctorate in chemistry at Rutgers-The State University of New Jersey and his undergraduate degree from Peking University in Beijing, is development of nanoparticles that deliver both therapy and imaging agents that would allow real-time monitoring of cancer therapy.
Scott Manalis, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Biological and Mechanical Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Scott Manalis leads the Nanoscale Sensing group of the Center for Bits and Atoms. His research interests are on the development of nanofabrication technologies for building molecular-scale devices, the use of MEMS for novel detection schemes, and the application of such devices to biomolecular recognition. The group's current work includes projects that focus on using electrical detection schemes for analyzing DNA, proteins, and cells. He received a B.S. in physics with highest honors from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1994, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in applied physics from Stanford University in 1996 and 1998, respectively. In addition to his work at MIT, Manalis is also a visiting scholar at Stanford University. He has been selected by Technology Review magazine as one of the 100 innovators under the age of 35 whose work and ideas "will have a deep impact on how we live, work and think in the century to come."
Allan Oseroff, M.D., Ph.D.
Chairman, Departments of Dermatology
Roswell Park Cancer Institute
and University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences
Dr. Allan R. Oseroff joined the staff of Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI) in 1990, as Chairman of the Department of Dermatology, and became Chair of the State University of NY at Buffalo Department of Dermatology in 2000. Dr. Oseroff earned his doctoral degree in Applied Physics from Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, in 1971, and his medical degree at Yale University Medical School, New Haven, CT, in 1977. He completed residency training in Medicine and Dermatology at the University of Chicago in 1980, and fellowship training in Immunology, Oncology and Dermatology at Stanford Medical Center, Palo Alto, CA, in 1982.
Dr. Oseroff is licensed by New York State and is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Dermatology. He holds joint appointments in the departments of Molecular & Cellular Biophysics and Pharmacology & Therapeutics at RPCI, and is Professor of Dermatology at the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.
Dr. Oseroff’s research interests focus on clinical trials and laboratory studies examining mechanisms of photodynamic therapy (PDT); new photosensitizers; molecular responses; effects of ALA-PDT on T lymphocytes and antigen presenting cells; and imaging. He directs a NCI sponsored Program Project on PDT at Roswell Park.
Dr. Oseroff is a member of many professional organizations, and is the recipient of over 20 research grants from federal funding agencies and foundations. He is on the advisory boards of multiple NIH-funded national biomedical optics and imaging research centers and NIH grant review panels. Currently, he serves on the Non-Melanoma Skin Cancer Treatment Guidelines Panel, National Comprehensive Cancer Network, and on a number of committees at RPCI and the University at Buffalo.
Dr. Oseroff has authored or co-authored more than 200 journal publications, book chapters and abstracts. He is a member of the Editorial Board of the journals Cancer Research and Lasers in Surgery and Medicine, and is a Scientific Journal Referee for 16 journals, including Applied Optics, Blood, Nature, Science, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Paras Prasad, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Chemistry
University at Buffalo
Dr. Paras N. Prasad is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Physics, Medicine and Electrical Engineering, the highest rank in the New York State university system. He holds the Samuel P. Capen Chair at the University at Buffalo and is the Executive Director of UB’s multidisciplinary Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics. Dr. Prasad conducts pioneering research in the development and application of two-photon technology for biophotonics and 3-D microfabrication as well as in the development and application of nanotechnology for optically trackable therapies designed for specific targeted sites in the human body. With 10 patents to his credit, he also is the author of "Biophotonics" (John Wiley & Sons, 2003) and "Nanophotonics" (John Wiley & Sons, 2004), the first two monographs to comprehensively address these fields. He has published over 500 scientific papers, co-edited six books, and co-authored a monograph (with D.J. Williams), "Introduction to Nonlinear Optical Effects in Molecules and Polymers."
Jan Schnitzer, M.D.
Scientific Director and Director of Vascular Biology and Angiogenesis Program
Cellular and Molecular Biology Program
Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, San Diego
Dr. Jan E. Schnitzer is the Scientific Director of the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, located in San Diego, California. The Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center is an independent, nonprofit research institution dedicated to the development and advancement of biomedical research to eliminate cancer. The SKCC was recently awarded a $14.4 million Program Project Grant, over five years, from the National Cancer Institute, with Dr. Schnitzer as the Principal Investigator of this grant. Dr. Schnitzer’s research has identified “zip code” molecules for cancer that allow drugs to be “mailed” directly to solid tumors via their blood vessels. Dr. Schnitzer’s lab discovered several years ago techniques to purify specific small parts of cells and tissue that are directly in contact with circulating blood and mediate transport into the tissue. Through proteomic analysis of this material, it is now becoming clear that drugs that target specialized cell surface transport vesicles called caveolae can be rapidly transported across restrictive endothelial cell barriers for penetration throughout solid tumors. This selective targeting and delivery into tumors greatly facilitates drug effectiveness while eliminating the usual side effects of conventional chemotherapies.
Dr. Schnitzer joined the faculty of San Diego’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center in 1999. He is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Director of Vascular Biology and Angiogenesis Program and Scientific Director. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Schnitzer was Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts (1994-1999), and an Assistant Professor at the University of California School of Medicine and Institute of Biomedical Engineering (1990-1994). Dr. Schnitzer received a BSE in Chemical Engineering from Princeton University and an M.D. (1985) from the University of Pittsburgh Medical School. He did his postdoctoral training at Yale University Medical School in the Department of Cell Biology.
Dr. Schnitzer has been studying protein interactions at the surface of endothelial cells lining blood vessels and how specialized membrane vesicles called caveolae function to transport endogenous molecules as well as possibly targeted drugs, nanoparticles and gene vectors from the circulatory blood across the endothelial cell barrier to reach underlying tissue and even tumor cells.
As the Scientific Director at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, Dr. Schnitzer is responsible for many administrative duties in addition to running his laboratory of approximately 30 scientists and technicians. He is the author of over 65 publications and book chapters and serves on many NIH and NCI Grant Review Panels. He also lectures at major symposia worldwide as an invited speaker and has received numerous honors and awards.
Dr. Schnitzer’s endeavors at San Diego’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center have contributed greatly to the National Cancer Institute’s ranking of SKCC as one of the top cancer centers in the United States in the application of genomics and proteomics to the treatment of cancers.
Miqin Zhang, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering
University of Washington
Miqin Zhang, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, and holds joint appointments in the Departments of Radiology, Neurological Surgery, and Orthopedics & Sports Medicine, UW School of Medicine. Dr. Zhang received a Master's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Victoria and a Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley. She joined the University of Washington as an Assistant Professor after her graduation from UC Berkeley in 1999.
Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on several aspects of biomaterials and biodevice development, including: magnetic nanoparticles and nanoconjugates for drug delivery, cancer diagnosis, and therapy; biocompatible and biodegradable composite scaffolds for tissue engineering; and protein and cell patterning for biosensor applications. Her research on nanomedicine has been highlighted in The Wall Street Journal, MIT Technology Review, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, NanoBioNews, Nature Nanotechnology, and other commercial news. She is a member of the editorial boards of the journal Biomedical Microdevices and the Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology. She serves on grant review panels for a number of funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.
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