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On June 1, Dr. Peppas presented a Distinguished Lecture at the Simpson Querrey Institute of Northwestern University. The Lecture was on Smart Biomaterials for Diagnosis of Diseases and Improvement of the Quality of Life of Patients.

On May 11, Dr. Peppas presented the Stanley Katz Lecture on Advances in siRNA and Protein Delivery Through Smart Polymers (link).

After 13 years at the University of Texas at Austin, Dr. Peppas returned to the Chemical Engineering Department of Purdue University to present the 50th Kelly Lectures. The presentations were Multiresponsive Nanogels for the Delivery of Small Interfering RNA and Advanced Protein Therapeutic Agents and Intelligent Polymer Hydrogels: From Obscure Molecular Structures to Useful Multifunctional Systems.

Nicholas Peppas visited the Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Department of Rutgers University and presented the 2015 Johnson and Johnson lecture Thermodynamics of Intelligent Hydrogels for Recognitive and Protein Delivery Systems.

The 100th PhD of the research group, Dr. Amey Puranik, graduated on April 7, 2015. His PhD Thesis was on “Intelligent Nanoscale Hydrogels for the Oral Delivery of Hydrophobic Therapeutics“ (link)

Dr. Peppas is recognized by the Controlled Release Society with the establishment of a special CRS Student Fund Grant (link). Peppas will be at the CRS meeting in Edinburgh and will deliver a special lecture on July 27: Intelligent Polymer Hydrogels: From Obscure Molecular Structures to Useful Multifunctional Systems for Drug and Protein Delivery, Targeting and Molecular Sensing.

Nicholas Peppas presented the 2015 Reilly Lectures for the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He gave two presentations as part of the lectureship, the first titled “Advances in siRNA and Protein Delivery Through Smart Polymers” (link) on March 31 at 3:30pm and the second titled “Nanotechnology and Bioengineering in an Evolving Chemical Engineering World” (link) on April 1, 2015 at 1:00pm.

On March 27, Nicholas Peppas visited the Chinese Academy of Enginering in Beijing, met with the leaders of CAE and will give a seminar on “Biomaterials: Past, Present and Future".

On March 26, Professor Peppas presented a campus-wide lecture for undergraduate students on “Biomaterials: Past, Present and Future" at Sichuan University.

On March 25, Professor Peppas presented a lecture on “Intelligent and Recognitive Nanoscale Systems for New Therapeutic Applications” at the Pharmacy Department of Sichuan University.

Nicholas Peppas flew to Chengdu, China where from March 23-26 he gave 12 lectures on “Fundamentals and Applications of Biopolymers in Medical Applications and Drug delivery” at the Sichuan University where he is an honorary professor.

During the induction ceremony of the new Fellows of the National Academy of Inventors (link) at the California Institute of Technology on March 20 Nicholas Peppas gave an invited talk on “Innovation and Invention in the Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Industry: How to Improve Treatment and Quality of Life of our Patients” (link).

Nicholas Peppas was the featured speaker in the Engineering-wide Strategic Research Theme on Biomedical Engineering and Nanotechnology of the University of Hong Kong. He spoke on "Advances in Intelligent Biomaterials for Recognitive Systems, Biosensors and Protein Delivery Systems" (link).

Nicholas Peppas presented the Plenary Lecture of the Second Materials Today Asia 2014 conference (link). He spoke on "The next Generation of Intelligent Hydrogels: Molecular Recognition, Cellular Interactions and Advanced Drug delivery".

On November 25, 2014, Nicholas Peppas gave his inaugural lecture at the Academy of Athens on the occasion of his election to the Academy. He spoke on "Forty Years of Biomedical Engineering in the Service of Man and Mankind" and gave a review of forty years of work in the field. His talk is presented here (Link to Part I)(link to Part II)(Link to Part III).

On Friday, November 7, Nicholas Peppas gave the Giulio Natta Lecture at the Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, the university where Giulio Natta, a chemical engineer by training and Nobel Laureate of 1963, was a professor. Peppas received the Giulio Natta Medal (link).

On Wednesday, November 5, Nicholas Peppas presented a lecture at the University of Milan, Italy, in celebration of the life of Prof. Maria Edvige "Didi" Sangalli of the University of Milan, a former collaborator of the lab, who passed away so unexpectedly on November 8, 2009 . His talk was on "Intelligent Delivery of Therapeutic Agents: A Tribute to Didi Sangalli and an Ever Changing Field" (link).

Nicholas A Peppas gave the Elmer L. Gaden Memorial Lecture at Columbia University (link). He spoke on "Responsive & Intelligent Biopolymers for Recognitive, Biosensing and Protein Delivery". Known as the "the Father of Biochemical Engineering" Prof. Gaden was a professor of Chemical Engineering at Columbia from 1950 to 1974 and was a major figure in promoting the then new field of biochemical engineering.

Nicholas A Peppas was a speaker in the 4th US-China Symposium on Nanobiology and Nanotechnology organized by NIH at the AAAS building in Washington, DC. He spoke on Intelligent/Recognitive Nanoscale Systems for New Therapeutic Applications.

Nicholas Peppas was a plenary speaker (link) at the 2014 International Institute for Nanotechnology Symposium at Northwestern University on October 9. He spoke about "Intelligent/Recognitive Nanoscale Systems for New Therapeutic Applications".

Nicholas A. Peppas gave an invited seminar in the New Frontiers in Biomedical Research series at Louisiana Tech, Ruston, LA. The full video is here (link) September 16, 2014.

The great K-12 research program of our lab "Graduate Research in High School Hands (GRiH2) Program" with St Stephen's and LASA high school students John Sullivan, Kevin Lee, Sofia Kennedy, Frank Muehleman and Sam Norwood was held again this year. (link)

Nicholas A. Peppas was a plenary speaker at the Recovery of Biological Products XVI conference (link) held in Hohe Düne, Rostock, Germany. He spoke on "Future Directions in Drug Delivery and Intelligent/ Responsive Materials".

Nicholas A. Peppas gave a short interview on how he decided to work on drug delivery and biomaterials problems and how he built his lab (link). At last count in his 38-year academic career, there have been 775 undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs and visiting scientists who have passed through the laboratory and worked on original research on drug delivery and related biomedical fields. They include almost 100 PhD graduates and 55 former graduate and postdoctoral researchers who are now faculty members.

Two papers published in the Journal of Controlled Release by P. Ritger and N. Peppas (link) and (link) are the most cited original papers in the 30-year history of the journal. A special article has been commissioned for this occasion for publication in JCR.

A paper from the lab, titled "An Inulin and Doxorubicin Conjugate for Improving Cancer Therapy" authored by Cody Schoener (ChE PhD'12, NSF Fellow), Brenda Carrillo-Conde (Post-doctoral fellow), Heather Hutson (BME BS'12, NSF Fellow at Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison) and Nicholas Peppas, won the 2013 best paper award of the Journal of Drug Delivery Science and Technology. The award will be given during the World Meeting on Pharmaceutics, Biopharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Technology in Lisbon on March 31- April 4 (link).

Professor Peppas was elected a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens (link, link in Greek, link in English). He will be inducted to the Academy and present an inaugural lecture on November 25, 2014 in the magnificent Academy building with the imposing statues of Socrates and Plato at its entrance.

A symposium in honor of Nicholas Peppas (link) was organized at the ACS meeting In Dallas, TX by his former PhD student and now distinguished professor at Colorado, Chris Bowman. The list of invited speakers included some of the leading names in macromolecular and biopolymer science including his former students Chris Bowman, Antonios Mikos, Kristi Anseth, John Klier and Balaji Narasimhan, his colleagues and/or collaborators Tom Truskett, Chris Ellison, Grant Willson and Ali Khademhosseini, and other friends and leading figures in the field such as Krzysztof Matyjasewski, Chad Mirkin, Sharon Glotzer, Matt Tirrell, Curt Frank, Sam Stupp, Joe DeSimone, Jindrich Kopecek and Buddy Ratner.

On March 6, Nicholas Peppas presented the Kammermeyer Lecture in the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering of the University of Iowa (link)

Nicholas Peppas presented the 2014 Skalak Lecture in the Bioengineering Department of the University of California at San Diego on February 10, 2014 (link, link).

Nicholas Peppas presented an invited lecture on Molecular Imprinting and Recognitive Medical Devices at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal (link).

Nicholas Peppas is featured in C&E News of January 6, 2014 on the occasion of the 2104 ACS Applied Polymer Science Award (link).

Nicholas Peppas is the 2013 recipient of the International Journal of Nanomedicine Distinguished Scientist Award. He presented the award winning lecture on "Advanced Biomaterials and Nanotechnology for Improved Health Care" as an inaugural lecture for the Materials Research Society (MRS) symposium "Advanced Composites and Structures for Tissue Engineering" on Monday, December 2, 2013 in Boston.

Laboratory researcher and Chemical Engineering PhD candidate Jenny Knipe won the first prize from the Society of Women Engineers Technical Poster Competition for her paper on Biodegradable microencapsulated nanogel system for the oral delivery of siRNA in Baltimore, MD, on October 25, 2013 (link).

Nicholas Peppas is the winner of the 2013 Nanoscale Science and Engineering Forum Award for his achievement in nano-science and technology, impact in education, and commitment to professional service. He delivered his lecture on "Intelligent and Recognitive Nanoscale Systems for a New Generation of Therapeutic Applications" (link) at the AIChE meeting on Monday, November 4, 2013 at 4:05 pm (link).

Nicholas Peppas presented the 2013 Hoffman Lecture at the University of Washington Bioengineering Department (link). He spoke on "Hydrogels, Intelligence and Therapeutic Systems: Is there a Future?". The Lecture was established in 2010 in honor of professor Allan Hoffman.

Nicholas Peppas and Teruo Okano presented two plenary lectures at the European Society for Biomaterials meeting in Madrid, Spain on September 8, 2013 (link). Peppas spoke on "Novel Intelligent and Recognitive Carriers for siRNA delivery and theranostics"

Nicholas Peppas gave one of four plenary lectures (link) 19th International Symposium on Microencapsulation in Pamplona, Spain on September 10, 2013. He spoke about "Advanced Responsive and Feedback-controlled nanoparticles for consumer and cosmetic applications".

Dr. Peppas participated and chaired the "Workshop on Key Challenges in the Implementation of Convergence" (link) sponsored by the Board on Life Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences (link). BME graduate students Stephanie Steichen and Lindsey Sharpe participated by invitation as well.

Nicholas Peppas and Kazunori Kataoka were the plenary lecturers in the 5th Asian Arden Conference in Nagoya, Japan (link). Peppas spoke on Novel Intelligent and Recognitive Carriers for siRNA Delivery and Theranostics.

The Peppas Factor: Educating Future Leaders An article about Dr. Peppas' educational contributions and teaching style (link)(pdf).

June 27: Steve R. Lustig (MS 85, PhD '88) of the DuPont company is the winner of the 2013 Industrial Research & Development Award of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE). He will receive the award at the annual AIChE meeting in San Francisco in November.

Dr. Peppas talked about "Advances in Intelligent Hydrogels for Recognitive and Protein Delivery Systems" at the Institute of Bioengineering, School of Life Sciences & School of Engineering of the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne, Switzerland on July 4, 2013.

Professor Nicholas Peppas has been selected to receive the Distinguished Scientist Award of the International Journal of Nanomedicine, The Award recognizes an established scientist who has made significant contributions to the field of nanomedicine. Peppas will receive this award at the Fall Biomedical Engineering Society meeting in Seattle, WA.

Three laboratory researchers received best papers awards for their work presented in the Biomaterials Day of the Society for Biomaterials in Austin, TX, May 31, 2013. Stephanie Steichen and Michael Koetting received the first and second prizes in the graduate students competition, while Hannah Frizzell received the first prize in the undergraduate students competition.

At the Engineering Commencement of Friday, May 17, 2013, graduating senior Rebekah Scheuerle received the outstanding student and leader award of the Cockrell School of Engineering.

Professor Peppas presented a series of lectures at the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Belgrade in Serbia. His day course on Fundamentals and Applications of Controlled Release and Drug Delivery was held on May 23, 2013 from 8:00 to 5:00 pm and was open to members of the pharmaceutical and chemical industry.

Professor Nicholas Peppas was the recipient of the 2013 Benjamin Garver Lamme Excellence in Engineering Education Award of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE). The ASEE’s Benjamin Garver Lamme Award is the most prominent education award in the nation and was established in 1927. The award acknowledges excellence in teaching, contributions to research and technical literature, and achievements that advance engineering college administration. It was presented at the ASEE Annual Awards Banquet June 26 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Two publications by Richard Korsmeyer (MS '81, PhD '83) and Don Owens (PhD’ 07) and Nicholas Peppas on "Mechanisms of Solute Release from Porous Hydrophilic Polymers" and "Opsonization, Biodistribution, and Pharmacokinetics of Polymeric Nanoparticles" are the most cited papers in the history of the International Journal of Pharmaceutics (link).

Prof. Peppas presented the Parr Lecture in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on April 25, 2013 (link).

Prof. Peppas presented the 5th Ruckenstein Lecture in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department of the University of Buffalo on April 23, 2013 (link).

Prof. Peppas gave the Distinguished Lecture of the College of Engineering at Michigan Tech on March 7, 2013. He spoke on "New Frontiers in the Pharmaceutical and Medical Sciences: Advanced Intelligent Hydrogels for Treatment of Diabetes, Cancer and Multiple Sclerosis" (link).

Rebekah Scheuerle, a senior in ChE who has been working in the lab since the freshman year, just received the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship to pursue post-graduate studies at Cambridge University (link).

Prof. Peppas has been elected President-elect of the Engineering Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) with automatic succession to President in February 2014.

Nicholas Peppas presented a plenary lecture on “Protein Transport Mechanisms and Protein/Polymer Dynamics in Transmucosal Delivery” at the 4th International Conference on Biomolecular Engineering sponsored by the Society of Biological Engineering in Ft Lauderdale, FL, on January 14, 2013 (link).

Nicholas Peppas presented a keynote lecture on “Intelligent Hydrogels and the Future of Nanomedicine” at the Symposium “New Innovations in Polymers and Biomaterials” held in Maui on December 14-17, 2012 to celebrate Prof. Hoffman’s 80th birthday. Professors Allan Hoffman (1932- ) and Nicholas Peppas (1948- ) are academic brothers having done their PhDs at MIT’s ChE Department (in 1957 and 1973, respectively) under the advising of Professor Ed Merrill.

The 9th International Polymer Conference (IPC2012) "Progress and Future of Polymer Science and Technology" was organized by the Society of Polymer Science Japan, in Kobe, Japan on December 10-14, 2012. Nicholas Peppas was one of the eight invited speakers and spoke on “Dynamics and Diffusional Behavior of Complexation Networks and Gels with Applications to Drug Delivery and Molecular Recognition”.

During his visit to Japan Professor Peppas gave talks at the Dainippon Sumitomo company on “Intelligent Protein Delivery Systems” and at Kobe Gakuin University on “Intelligent Polymer Systems for the Delivery of Proteins, siRNA and Chemotherapeutics”.

Nicholas Peppas was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. He was honored by the President of the Republic of Slovenia, Dr. Danilo Türk at a ceremony on December 4 at the University of Ljubljana in Ljubljana, Slovenia (link). The other two honorary doctorates are the noted statistician Prof. Donald Dublin of Harvard University, and Adam Michnik, a Polish historian, essayist, and former dissident. Peppas has collaborated with the university for more than 15 years and has published papers with Slovenian scientists including students who visited his laboratory and carried out research.

October 15: IOM just announced that Antonios “Tony” G. Mikos was elected a member of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies. Tony G Mikos (MS ’85, PhD ’88) is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice University, Houston, TX. He was recognized for “for seminal contributions and visionary leadership in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine” (link). This way, Tony becomes member of a second US academy in the same year, having been elected to NAE in February 2012 and inducted just two weeks ago. Dr. Mikos is only one of three Texans who are members of both NAE and IOM, the other two being Profs. Georgiou and Peppas.

On September 30, 2012 the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) awarded the 2012 Founders Award to Nicholas A. Peppas (link). The Founders Award is the highest recognition bestowed by NAE to its members. Previous bioengineers who received this award include Y. C. Fung (1998) and Shu Chien (2006) of UC San Diego, Bob Nerem of Georgia Tech (2008) and Bob Langer (2010) of MIT. Previous chemical engineers who were recipients of the Founders Award include Warren K. Lewis (1973) and Hoyt Hottel (1980) of MIT, Neal Amundson of the University of Houston (1990), Ralph Landau (1994) of Halcon, Stu Churchill (2002) of the University of Pennsylvania, Eli Ruckenstein (2004) of Buffalo and Bob Langer (2010) of MIT.

Don R. Miller (PhD '84) will receive the 2012 AIChE Industrial Research & Development Award. He is recognized "For outstanding achievement in the industrial practice of chemical engineering toward the successful development and commercialization of pharmaceutical and biomedical products."

Nicholas Peppas presented the leading lecture of the NanoBio Seattle 2012, the Fourth International NanoBio Conference held in Seattle, WA on July 23-26, 2012. He spoke on “Intelligent Biomaterials to Control Recognition and Specificity in Nanomedicine” (link).

Nicholas Peppas presented the plenary lecture of the Biomaterials Day of the Society for Biomaterials in Houston, TX on July 27, 2012. He spoke on “Hydrogels as Biomaterials: A 40-year saga” (link).

Once more this year, Nicholas Peppas gave six lectures at the MIT short course Controlled Release Technology: Polymeric Delivery Systems for Pharmaceuticals, Proteins, and Other Agents (link) on July 9-12, 2012. This is a summer course first presented at MIT in July 1980. It was organized under the direction of Professor Bob Langer of MIT and several colleagues including Peppas, and it was the first course of its sort to be offered by an academic institution. This was the 33rd year the course will be given at MIT.

Dr. Peppas presented two lectures on “Intelligent Biomaterials for Responsive Delivery of Therapeutic Agents” and “Nanotechnology and Bioengineering in an Evolving Chemical Engineering World: The Next Generation of Recognitive Micro- and Nanodevices” at the RTI International (link) on Monday, June 25, 2012.

Nicholas Peppas and Antonios Mikos (MS ‘85, PhD ‘88) of Rice University were elected Honorary Professors of Sichuan University in Chengdu, China. They were recognized at a ceremony hosted by the University on June 2, 2012.

At the 9th World Congress for Biomaterials held in Chengdu, China Professor Peppas was reelected President of the International Union of Societies of Biomaterials Science and Engineering (IUSBSE) for the period 2012-2016.

Professor Peppas delivered the Inaugural Plenary Lecture at the 9th World Congress for Biomaterials held in Chengdu, China on June 1-5, 2012. This Congress, which is held once every four years, is the largest gathering of biomaterials scientists in the world and attracted more than 4,000 participants. Peppas talked about “Intelligent biomaterials for medical devices with molecular recognition capabilities” (link).

May 16: Two of the laboratory's senior graduate students received the two highest research awards of the University of Texas at Austin at the Michael H. Granof University Awards for Excellence in Graduate Research and Education event at the Four Seasons hotel.
-- William Liechty received the Michael H. Granof Outstanding Graduate Student Award. The award came with a crystal and a $10,000 grand prize. Bill is a NSF Fellow and a Gates Fellow who studied at Cambridge before joining UT. He was the UT representative to the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting in Lindau, Germany in June 2011 and has participated in numerous national and international meetings. Bill's research is on "Development of Dual-Responsive Nanoscale Hydrogels for Oral Delivery of Small Interfering RNA". He has published nine papers (link) including the most downloaded paper in the history of Annual Reviews of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (link) which he co-authored with Brandon Slaughter.                                                          
-- Brandon Slaughter received the Excellence in Graduate Research Award for Engineering and Natural Sciences. The award was accompanied by a $2,000 check. Brandon is the third graduate student from the lab to receive this University-wide award. Last year's recipient was Bill Liechty, while the 2010 recipient was David Kryscio. Brandon is a NSF/IGERT and NSF Fellow who has done research at EPFL in Lausanne with Prof. Melody Swartz. He has published four papers (link) including the most downloaded paper in the history of Annual Reviews of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (link) which he co-authored with Bill Liechty and the highly cited "Hydrogels in Regenerative Medicine" (link).

Anthony Lowman (PhD ’97) has been appointed Vice Provost for Research and Business Development of Temple University in Philadelphia.

Alec B. Scranton was named the new Dean of the University of Iowa College of Engineering. Alec is a graduate of our group (PhD '89) and worked on polymerization reaction engineering (link).

Dr. Brenda Carrillo-Conde, a postdoctoral fellow in our group, was awarded the 2012 Karas Award for Outstanding Dissertation in the Mathematical, Physical Sciences, and Engineering category at Iowa State University.

Professor Peppas has been elected a Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Spain (Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia). Established in 1737 by King Philip V, the Real Academia Nacional de Farmacia is one of the Royal Academies of Spain linked through the Instituto de España and under the presidency of the King Juan Carlos I. The Academy has 50 Academicians and 173 Corresponding Academicians. The induction ceremony took place at the Academy building in Madrid, Spain on April 25, 2012 (link) and (link).

An article on drug delivery authored by William B. Liechty, David R. Kryscio, Brandon V. Slaughter (all three NSF Fellows), and Nicholas A. Peppas is the most downloaded paper in the history of Annual Reviews of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (link).

Since 1985, the Department of Chemical Engineering of the University of California at Berkeley has invited an outstanding researcher from academy or industry to spend three days with us each year, during which he or she presents two lectures, the Berkeley Lectures in Chemical Engineering. This year’s invited speaker was Prof. Peppas who presented two lectures on Monday and Wednesday, April 2 and 4, 2012. Their titles were: “Intelligent Biomaterials for Responsive Delivery of Therapeutic Agents” (link) and “Nanotechnology and Bioengineering in an Evolving Chemical Engineering World: The Next Generation of Recognitive Micro- and Nanodevices” (link).

Prof. Peppas gave an invited talk on “Advances in Hydrogels for Medical Applications” at the 6th International Symposium on Intelligent Drug Delivery Systems held in Seoul, South Korea on March 14-17, 2012.

Professor Peppas was presented with the Education Award in Biomedical Nanotechnology for his contributions to educate scientists and engineers in the field of Bionanotechnology. The award is sponsored by the Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute of the University of Miami. The presentation of the award took place at the Miami 2012 Winter Symposium, February 28. The 2012 meeting was entitled Nanotechnology in Biomedicine and was organized by Nature Biotechnology, Nature Medicine and Nature Nanotechnology, in conjunction with the University of Miami Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Foundation, Inc. (link).

Nicholas Peppas presented an invited lecture on “The next generation of intelligent, recognitive medical micro- and nanodevices” at the Miami 2012 Winter Symposium organized by the journal Nature. This is a premier conference in nanomedicine and the theme of this symposium was Nanotechnology in Biomedicine. His lecture was given on Tuesday, February 28 (link).

Two former graduates of the laboratory, Drs Richard W. Korsmeyer and Antonios G. Mikos were elected members of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).                                                                           
-- Dr. Richard W. Korsmeyer (MS ’80, PhD ’83) is Senior Research Fellow and Head of Licensing, Worldwide Pharmaceutical Sciences, of Pfizer, New London, CT. He was recognized for pioneering work and leadership in the development of successful drug delivery formulations and medical devices (link).                
-- Dr. Antonios G Mikos (MS ’85, PhD ’88) is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice university, Houston, TX. He was recognized for advances in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, biomaterials and drug delivery including the development of novel biodegradable polymers (link).

Professor Peppas presented the UNC/Eisai Distinguished Lecture in Drug Delivery  titled " Intelligent Biomaterials for Protein Delivery, Molecular Imprinting and Recognitive Medical Devices" at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Department of Biomedical Engineering of the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, NC, on November 14, 2011 (link)

Professor Nicholas A. Peppas has been selected as the recipient of the 2011 Excellence in Surface Science Award  of the Surface in Biomaterials Foundation. The Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation is dedicated to exploring creative solutions to technical challenges at the BioInterface by fostering education and multidisciplinary cooperation among industrial, academic, clinical and regulatory communities (link). Each year the Surfaces in Biomaterials Foundation bestows an award to a key figure in the biomaterials field who has shown considerable contribution in the Surface Science field with emphasis on medical materials and biomaterials. Dr. Peppas received the award at the 2011 Biointerface Meeting in Minneapolis on October 24, 2011, where he presented a plenary award lecture.

Prof. Juergen Siepmann of the University of Lille France and Professor Peppas have edited a special issue of the International Journal of Pharmaceutics that celebrates the 50th anniversary of the publication of Professor Higuchi’s famous equation (link). This seminal contribution by Takeru Higuchi has guided pharmaceutical formulation design for 50 years. This new IJP volume has just appeared this month. 

Professor Nicholas Peppas gave one of the three Centennial Lectures (link) in the Centennial celebrations of the School of Chemical Engineering of Purdue University on October 7, 2011. In addition, Peppas and his former colleague Phillip C. Wankat are the authors of the second edition of the History of the School which was published in October (link). Peppas was a professor at Purdue from September 1976 till December 2002.

Professor Peppas presented an invited lecture titled "Nanotechnology and Bioengineering in an Evolving Chemical Engineering World: The Next Generation of Recognitive, Intelligent Medical Microdevices" at the Chemical Engineering Department of ETH, Zurich on September 26, 2011 (link).

Nicholas A. Peppas has been elected to the 2011 class of Fellows of the American Chemical Society (ACS). This is the third class of ACS Fellows and it represents about 200 leading researchers in chemical sciences. The ACS Fellows Program was created in 2008 to recognize members of ACS for outstanding achievements in and contributions to science, the profession, and society. Induction took place at the Annual ACS meeting in Denver, CO on August 29.

The 2009 contribution on Micro- and nanotechnologies for intelligent and responsive biomaterial-based medical systems  (Adv Drug Del Revs, 61, 1391, 2009) by Mary Caldorera-Moore and Nicholas Peppas is the most cited work published in the last two years in the  field of intelligent medical systems.

The 2003 contribution on Advances in biomaterials, drug delivery, and bionanotechnology (AIChE Journal, 49, 2990, 2003) by Robert Langer and Nicholas Peppas is the most cited work published in the AIChE Journal in the last ten years with 275 citations.

William Liechty received the Excellence in Graduate Research award at the Graduate School/University Co-op Awards for Excellence in Graduate Education on May 18, 2011. The award includes a cash prize of $2000. Bill was recognized for the “Development of Dual-Responsive Nanoscale Hydrogels for Oral Delivery of Small Interfering RNA”. Bill is a NSF Fellow and was the UT representative to the Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting in Lindau, Germany in June. He is the second chemical engineer in a row to receive this prestigious award, David Kryscio having been last year’s recipient.

An article by Don Owens (PhD’ 07) and Nicholas Peppas on Opsonization, Biodistribution, and Pharmacokinetics of polymeric nanoparticles is the most cited paper in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics in the past five years (link).  

William Liechty was the winner of the first prize for best paper in the Second Biomaterials Day competition at Texas A&M on May 16, 2011.

William B. Liechty has been selected to attend the Lindau Meeting of Nobel Laureates as a UT representative. In this meeting Nobel Laureates in chemistry, physics, and physiology/medicine convene annually to have open and informal meetings with students and young researchers. At the meeting, that was held June 26-July 1, 2011, the laureates lectured on the topic of their choice in the mornings and participated in less formal, small-group discussions with the students in the afternoons and some evenings.

Dr. Peppas gave a plenary lecture on “Advanced siRNA and protein delivery through smart hydrogels” at the Turkish Chapter of the Controlled Release Society in Istanbul, Turkey on June 2, 2011.

Dr. Peppas presented the Kurt Wohl Lecture at the University of Delaware on April 29 (link).

Nicholas Peppas gave an invited talk on Responsive Biomaterials and Feedback-Controlled Medical Devices for Protein Delivery, Molecular Imprinting and Microfabricated Systems at the National Engineering Research Center for Biomaterials in Chengdu, China, on April 2 (link).

Katie Maass, a senior chemical engineer and research assistant in the Peppas Lab for 2 years, was awarded a 5-year $250,000 Hertz Foundation Fellowship for graduate research. This will allow her to pursue PhD studies at MIT (link).

Dr. Peppas presented the Alkis Payatakes Memorial Lecture at the University of Houston on March 4 (link).

Dr. Peppas presented the Basore Distinguished Lecture at Auburn University on February 23 (link).

Nicholas Peppas gave an invited talk on New frontiers in drug delivery: emerging applications in oral administration at the Fifteenth International Symposium on Recent Advances in Drug Delivery Systems in Salt Lake City, Utah, on February 16 (link).

Dr. Peppas presented the Eugene W. Skinner and Eugene P. Lautenschlager Memorial Lecture  at Northwestern University on February 10 (link).

Professor Peppas gave the Plenary Lecture of the 10th Congress of the Sociedad Española de Farmacia Industrial  Galénica in Madrid, Spain on February 3 (link). He talked about Advances in Protein Delivery and Responsive Nanoscale Drug Delivery Systems.

Nicholas Peppas was elected President of the Biomedical Engineering Council of Chairs (link).

The group of Prof. Nicholas Peppas was ranked second world-wide and first American in the number of citations of work in the fields of Pharmacology and Toxicology (including Drug Delivery), cited between January 2000 and August 2010. They had been cited 3,372 times for their work in these specific subfields. The data on high-impact researchers in pharmacology and toxicology were extracted from the Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database of Thomson Reuters®. In the current version of ESI, approximately 294,900 author records were surveyed to obtain these results. The group had also 5 top papers published over the period. Highly cited papers rank in the top 1% by total citations in their field when compared with papers published the same period.

Nicholas A Peppas was the recipient of the 2010 BMES Distinguished Achievement Lecture Award. The BMES Distinguished Achievement Award is presented each year to a company, charitable foundation, nonacademic institution or individual who has made great contributions to the field of biomedical engineering. The recipient is expected to deliver a plenary lecture at the BMES Annual Meeting in the fall and to publish the text of the lecture in the Annals of Biomedical Engineering. An important purpose of the lecture is to offer a vision of the challenges and opportunities in biomedical engineering. Peppas delivered his plenary lecture at the 2010 Biomedical Engineering Society’s Annual Meeting in Austin, on October 7, 2010. (link)

Nicholas Peppas was the recipient of the 2010 Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal Award, one of the most prestigious awards in biomaterials science recognizing “excellence in research and development”. The criteria indicate “... the awardee should be an undisputed world leader in the field of biomaterials, whose accomplishments in discovery and translation to practice are surpassing and known to all in the field”. The award consists of a gold medal, plaque and a cash honorarium. This award was presented at the 2010 Biomedical Engineering Society’s Annual Meeting in Austin, on October 6, 2010. (link)

Nicholas Peppas is this year’s recipient of the C. William Hall Award from the Society for Biomaterials. This award honors members of the Society For Biomaterials who have made a significant contribution to the Society and have an outstanding record in establishing, developing, maintaining and promoting the objectives and goals of the Society For Biomaterials. Peppas was previously honored with the Society’s Clemson Award for Basic Research (1992) and with its highest research recognition, the Founder’s Award (2005). He received the C. William Hall award at the 2010 Annual SFB Meeting in Seattle, April 21-24.

Professor Nicholas Peppas is the recipient of the 2010 Distinguished Scientist Award from the Southeastern Universities Research Association (SURA).(link) He is cited for pioneering contributions to biomedical engineering, biomaterials, polymer sciences and drug delivery. The award was presented to him at the SURA Board of Trustees meeting at Duke University on March 10, 2010 and included a $20,000 honorarium. More information about the award can be found here. (link)

Professor Nicholas Peppas received the 2010 Maurice Marie Janot Award. This award is the highest European recognition in the field of pharmaceutical sciences. It was established in 1986 by the European Pharmaceutical Society APGI and it is sponsored by Aventis Pharma. The award recognizes an international researcher for the quality, innovation and pioneering impact of his/her research work in pharmaceutical sciences over a ten year period. The award was given on the occasion of the International APGI Congress in Malta in March 2010. At the opening session of the Malta meeting Professor Peppas gave the Janot lecture (link). Previous winners (link).

On Sunday, October 11, 2009, Professor Nicholas Peppas was inducted to the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences along with the IOM Class of 2008. Previously, he had been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). On Monday, October 12, 2009,  the  Class of 2009 of new IOM members was announced. The class includes the former student and postdoctoral fellow of Professor Peppas, Professor Kristi Anseth of the University of Colorado.

Dr. Peppas was named by the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas (TAMEST) as one of Texas Leading Innovators. The recognition was announced at the annual meeting of TAMEST in Austin on January 6, 2011.

Professor Peppas presented an invited lecture on Molecular and Cellular Aspects of Transmucosal Protein Delivery at the Collège de France in Paris. (link) The Collège de France was established in 1530 by King Francis I of France. The school's professors are chosen from among the foremost researchers of the day, with no requirement other than that of being at the top of their fields. They are chosen from a variety of disciplines, in both science and the humanities.

Professor Nicholas Peppas was featured as a chemical engineering educator in the latest issue of the Chemical Engineering Education magazine of the ChE Division of ASEE. The article was written by former students Professor Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, now Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of Florida, and Christopher Bowman, now Associate Dean of Engineering at the University of Colorado (link).

The University of Texas at Austin Department of Biomedical Engineering is among a consortium of leading research entities from across the United States selected to receive up to $11.6 million from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to establish a center to conduct innovative cancer research. Nicholas Peppas is a co-PI of this grant. (link)    

On Monday, October 13, 2008, Professor Nicholas Peppas was elected a member of the  Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academy of Sciences (link).  Previously, he had been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). More>

Professor Peppas will be giving one of the plenary lectures at the at the First Global Congress on NanoEngineering for Medicine and Biology to be held in Houston on February 7-10, 2010. (link)

Professor Nicholas Peppas was appointed as the new Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering of the University of Texas at Austin (link).

Nicholas Peppas gave the Kewaunee Lectureship in the Biomedical Engineering Department of Duke University of Durham, NC on April 23, 2009. (link)

Nicholas Peppas was selected to the Academy of Chemical Engineers of the Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri on April 16, 2009. (link) He presented two lectures on "Recognition and Delivery: The Next Generation of Medical Microdevices" and on "Addressing Educational Problems in an Evolving, Global and Challenging Chemical Engineering World" during his induction.

Nicholas A. Peppas opened the 11th Mediterranean Chemical Engineering Congress in Barcelona, Spain on October 21, 2008. (link). He spoke about the Role of Chemical Engineering in the Growth of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

On the occasion of his election to IOM, the Controlled Release Society published an interview of Professor Peppas with the CRS Newsletter editors. The interview covered numerous points related to the history of the field and Peppas' contributions to the rational design of drug delivery systems. It was published in the January issue of this newsletter. (link)

Nicholas A. Peppas opened the international meeting on Chemistry and 21st Century Challenges: Science and Innovation in Sofia, Bulgaria on September 12, 2008.(link) He spoke about the Design of Functional and Intelligent Polymeric Carriers for Improved Cellular Transport and Biorecognition.

Nicholas Peppas has been elected a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) in recognition of his commitment and excellence in engineering education. The official induction took place at the ASEE meeting in Pittsburgh, PA, on Wednesday, June 25, 2008. (link)

Nicholas Peppas was elected a Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS) in the 2008 inaugural class of Fellows. This new grade recognizes a few MRS members who are notable for their distinguished research accomplishments and their outstanding contributions to the advancement of materials research, world-wide. The official induction took place on March 26 during the MRS meeting in San Francisco. (link)

Nicholas Peppas has been selected as a Highly Cited Researcher^SM by ISIHighlyCited.com of Thomson Scientific and the Institute of Scientific Information. Being acknowledged as a Highly Cited Researcher means that an individual is among the 250 most cited researchers for their published articles. Citation is a direct measure of influence on the literature of a subject, and it is also a strong indicator of scientific contribution, since it is derived from pattern of interaction among millions of published articles. (link)

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