Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor Leaf Huang, Ph.D., is the recipient of the Journal of Drug Targeting Lifetime Achievement Award for 2018 for his many outstanding contributions to drug delivery and targeting.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is an annual award given by the journal’s editorial board and publishers to a scientist who has made exceptional and sustained contributions to drug delivery and targeting. Previous winners include Professor Emeritus Rudy Juliano, Ph.D., of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.
A special issue of the Journal of Drug Targeting will be produced in Huang’s honor.
Huang has published over 380 peer-reviewed articles, over 160 invited reviews and book chapters and has co-edited two books. His Laboratory of Drug Targeting has been working on liposomes and immunoliposomes for drug delivery. Current activities are focused in the development of nonviral vectors for gene (including siRNA) therapy, and receptor mediated drug and vaccine targeting using self-assembled nanoparticles. The technologies are tested for therapy of cancer and liver diseases in animal models. Huang is a co-principal investigator of Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, one of the six centers funded by National Cancer Institute.
Huang was previously at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville from 1976 to 1991 and at the University of Pittsburgh from 1991 to 2005 as a faculty member. In July 2005, he was appointed as a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor at UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and chair of the Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, a position he held until 2012.