Dr. Joe DeSimone Biography

Joseph DeSimone is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of chemistry at UNC-Chapel Hill and he is a professor of chemical engineering at North Carolina State University. 

DeSimone has published more than 200 scientific articles and has over 100 patents in his name. In 2005 DeSimone was elected into the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. DeSimone was also the recipient of the 2005 ACS Award for Creative Invention.  In 1999, DeSimone became director of the $40 million NSF Science and Technology Center for Environmentally Responsible Solvents and Processes. 

In 2000 DeSimone received the Oliver Max Garner Award from the University of North Carolina.  In 2002, DeSimone, along with Dr. Richard Stack a cardiologist at Duke, co-founded Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions (BVS) to commercialize a fully bioabsorbable, drug-eluting stent.  BVS was acquired by Guidant Corporation in 2003 and these stents were recently brought into the clinic with a 60-patient clinical trial.

DeSimone’s group is now heavily focused on learning how to bring the precision, uniformity and mass production techniques associated with the fabrication of nanoscale features found in the microelectronics industry to the nano-medicine field for the fabrication and delivery of therapeutic, detection and imaging agents for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. 

In 2005 DeSimone reported (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2005, 127, 10096) a breakthrough called PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates) to directly fabricate uniform populations of monodisperse, shape-specific nano-biomaterials capable of delivering various therapeutic, detection and imaging agents to specific sites within living organisms.   

DeSimone recently launched Liquidia Technologies along with three former members of his laboratory (Dr. Jason Rolland, Dr. Ginger Denison and Dr. Ben Maynor), to commercialize these recent breakthroughs from his laboratory.  These results from DeSimone’s laboratory most recently became a foundation for the new $26.3 million Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence funded by the National Cancer Institute.  DeSimone is the co-PI of this newly established Center along with Dr. Rudy Juliano.