November 25, 2013
Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, PhD, has been named a member of the Academia Europaea, joining a distinguished group whose members include fifty-two Nobel Laureates.
Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. He also oversees the School’s Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and codirects the Carolina Institute for Nanomedicine.
Academia Europaea has about 3,000 members, which include leading experts from the physical sciences and technology, biological sciences and medicine, mathematics, the letters and humanities, social and cognitive sciences, economics, and law. New members are nominated by their peers and are evaluated based on their scholarship and eminence in their field.
“This honor reaffirms the fact that Dr. Kabanov is a world leader in his field,” says Bob Blouin, PharmD, dean of the School. “His work over the last two-plus decades has been groundbreaking, and this recognition is well-deserved.”
Kabanov’s research focuses primarily on polymer-based drug and gene delivery, as well as biologically active polymers. Among his accomplishments:
- He established the field of polymer genomics, which investigates the effects of polymers and nanomaterials on cellular responses to develop safe and efficient therapeutics.
- He is a pioneer in the use of nanotechnology to treat cancer and other diseases.
- He is known for his discovery of a polymer that can make anticancer medications up to one thousand times more effective against drug-resistant tumors than conventional chemotherapeutic agents.
- He has invented technologies that could potentially lead to more effective treatments of brain-related diseases such as stroke, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s.
- In 2010 he became the first chemist awarded a $4.5 million “megagrant” by the Russian government to open the Laboratory of Chemical Design of Bionanomaterials, of which he is a director, at Moscow State.
- He has published more than 240 scientific papers.
- He holds more than 100 patents worldwide, including 26 in the United States.
- He cofounded and sits on the boards of two companies. One of them, Supratek Pharma Inc., has successfully completed Phase II clinical trial on the Pluronic-based micellar formulation of Doxorubicin, SP1049C, the first polymeric micelle drug to reach the clinical stage.
Kabanov and other new members of the Academia Europaea will be inducted during the academy’s 2014 annual conference on July 16 in Barcelona, Spain.
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