Craig Duvall, Vanderbilt University

Date: 

Thursday, January 14, 2021, 12:00pm

 

Precision Biologic Medicines for Vascular Transplant and Osteoarthritis

Craig L. Duvall
Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Biomedical Engineering
Vanderbilt University

Abstract: The Duvall Advanced Therapeutics Laboratory (ATL) specializes in design and application of smart polymer-based technologies for: (1) intracellular delivery of biological drugs such as peptides and nucleic acids, (2) proximity-activated targeting of drugs to sites of inflammation and matrix remodeling, (3) long-term, “on-demand” drug release from localized depots. The ATL also has a budding interest in molecular design and chemistry of RNA therapeutics. Technologies developed in the ATL are tuned for improving the therapeutic index of existing drugs and/or to serve as enabling technologies for manipulation of intracellular targets currently considered to be “undruggable”. Our work is applied to a variety of disease applications, with the current talk focusing on recent advances for osteoarthritis and vascular transplant.

Bio: Dr. Craig L. Duvall is Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor and Director of Undergraduate Studies of Biomedical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. He completed his Ph.D. in BME at Georgia Tech and Emory University in 2007 under the guidance of Robert Guldberg, Ph.D. and W. Robert Taylor, M.D., Ph.D. His postdoc was in Bioengineering with Patrick Stayton and Allan Hoffman at the University of Washington through support from an NIH NRSA-funded postdoctoral fellowship. Based on these foundations, the Duvall Advanced Therapeutics Laboratory (ATL) was launched in the Vanderbilt Biomedical Engineering Department in 2010, and Dr. Duvall was promoted to Associate Professor in 2016, Professor in 2019, and Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor in 2019. Dr. Duvall's work has been recognized with several distinctions including the  Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NSF CAREER Award, Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award, Controlled Release Society Gene Delivery and Gene Editing Focus Group Young Investigator Award, Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Young Innovator Award, AIMBE Fellow, BMES Fellow, and standing membership on the Gene and Drug Delivery NIH Study Section.