Alexander Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr.Sci., assumed office as president of the Russian-American Scientists Association (RASA-America) on Nov. 5. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and co-director of the Carolina Institute for Nanomedicine at UNC-Chapel Hill.
The RASA-America transfer of authority ceremony took place at the organization’s annual conference in Washington, D.C.
“We believe that our American organization will go on and grow stronger. We will carry out international activities, assisting people all over the world who find themselves in a situation similar to ours,” Kabanov said.
Kabanov became president-elect of RASA-America in November 2017.
The next RASA-America conference will take place in November 2019 in Chapel Hill, Kabanov said. It will be dedicated to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, one of the pioneers of the Periodic Table.
Kabanov graduated from M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1984, where he also received Ph.D. in 1987 and Dr.Sci. in 1990. He began his scientific career in Soviet Union and continued it in United States, first at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, before coming to the UNC in 2012.
Kabanov has conducted pioneering research in the nanomedicine field including the use of polymeric micelles, DNA/polycation complexes, block ionomer complexes, nanogels, nanoparticle-macrophage carriers and exosomes for delivery of small drugs, nucleic acids and polypeptides to treat cancers and diseases of the central nervous system. He co-invented the first polymeric micelle drug to enter clinical trials to treat cancer and has been instrumental in establishment of polymeric micelles as nanotechnology used in clinically approved and marketed products. Kabanov holds 34 United States patents and over 50 foreign patents. He co-founded several companies focusing on therapies of cancers and diseases of the central nervous system.
The Russian-American Scientists Association was founded in 2008 to maintain, strengthen and develop common intellectual and cultural space of the Russian-speaking scientific community.