Joseph M. DeSimone

"Bridging Fields and Harnessing Diversity for the Sake of Innovation: Tackling Unmet Needs in the Life Sciences by Exploiting Developments in Materials"

On 19 November 2009, Joseph M. DeSimone, professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, will deliver the 2009 Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia.

About Joseph M. DeSimone
Joseph M. DeSimone is the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the William R. Kenan, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of North Carolina. DeSimone is also the coprincipal investigator of the Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, funded by the National Cancer Institute.

Author or coauthor of nearly 250 published scientific articles, DeSimone is also listed as inventor on 115 patents, with 120 patents pending. Among his notable inventions is an environmentally friendly manufacturing process that relies on supercritical carbon dioxide for the creation of high-performance plastics.

In 2002 DeSimone cofounded Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions to commercialize a fully bioabsorbable, drug-eluting stent. DeSimone’s current research focus is 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 nanomedicine field for the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. He recently launched Liquidia Technologies, which designs and manufactures precisely engineered particles and films for a variety of life- and materials-science applications.

DeSimone was elected into the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2005. He has received numerous major awards, including the Lemelson-MIT Prize for Invention and Innovation; the Collaboration Success Award,from the Council for Chemical Research; the American Chemical Society Award for Creative Invention; the John Scott Award,presented by the City Trusts, Philadelphia; DuPont’s Engineering Excellence Award; the Wallace H. Carothers Award, from the Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society; and the Oliver Max Gardner Award, from the University of North Carolina. In 2008 DeSimone was named Tar Heel of the Yearby the (Raleigh) News and Observer.

He earned a B.S. in chemistry from Ursinus College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. 

About the Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture
The Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture was established in 1990 to emphasize to the general public the positive role that the chemical and molecular sciences play in our lives. Ullyot Lectures are held annually and are open to the public. Ullyot lecturers are distinguished in their fields, nationally recognized, and able to communicate to a nonscientific audience. Past Ullyot Lecturers

The Ullyot Public Affairs Lecture is jointly sponsored by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of the Sciences, and the Philadelphia Section and Delaware Section of the American Chemical Society.

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