W. Mark Saltzman, of the department of Biomedical Engineering at Yale University, will deliver the 2019 Theodore, Mary and Sara Kraut Lecture in Chemical Engineering on the topic of "Polymer Nanoparticles for Intracellular and Targeted Delivery of Drugs and Biologics."

This event is free and open to the public.

The primary goal of nanomedicine is to improve clinical outcomes via targeted distribution of materials such as polymer nanoparticles. Traditionally, targeting was designed to increase a nanoparticle’s affinity for a target, an outcome that is difficult to achieve. Professor Saltzman will present examples of alternate approaches, in which nanoparticle design is fashioned to enhance intracellular delivery and delivery of nucleic acids. The value of these approaches is illustrated in nanoparticle-based treatment of brain tumors, targeted correction of a single gene disorder, antibody-mediated targeting, and other important medical applications.

W. Mark Saltzman is an engineer and educator whose research in the fields of drug delivery, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology, and tissue engineering is described in over 300 research papers and patents. He is the author of three textbooks: Biomedical Engineering (Second Edition, 2015), Tissue Engineering (2004), and Drug Delivery (2001). The grandson of Iowa farmers, Mark Saltzman earned degrees in chemical engineering (B.S. Iowa State University 1981 and M.S. MIT 1984) and medical engineering (Ph.D. MIT 1987). He served on the faculty at Johns Hopkins (1987–1996), Cornell (1996–2002), where he was the first BP Amoco/H. Laurance Fuller Chair, and Yale, where he has been the Goizueta Foundation Professor since 2002. He was named the founding chair of Yale’s Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2003 and served in that role until 2015.