2019 Swanson School Summary of Faculty Research

Page 50

CHEMICAL & PETROLEUM ENGINEERING

Steve R. Little, PhD

940 Benedum Hall | 3700 O’Hara Street | Pittsburgh, PA 15261 P: 412-624-9630  F: 412-624-9639

Chair Professor and Bicentennial Alumni Faculty Fellow

Research Focus Areas in the Little Lab Researchers in Dr. Little’s Lab focus upon therapies that are biomimetic in that they replicate the biological function and interactions of living entities using synthetic systems. The areas of study include bioengineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, ophthalmology, and immunology. The health issues addressed include autoimmune disease, battlefield wounds, cancer, HIV, ocular diseases, and transplantation. Some of the ongoing research projects in the lab include: Mimicking Biological Structure and Behavior Using Polymeric Release Systems and Carbon Nanotubes, Treatments for Periodontitis that Restore Immunological Homeostasis, Sequential Delivery of Growth Factors for Regeneration of Tissues, and Thermo-gelling Eye Drops for the Delivery of Ophthalmic Therapies. The majority of the projects in the Little Lab utilize some aspect of controlled release for drugs, proteins, or other molecules. While such techniques are not uncommon in the field of drug delivery, our lab is unique in its ability to design such systems in silico, thereby avoiding unnecessary expenditure of time and resources on heuristic testing of controlled release formulations. Our expertise in fabricating and characterizing such systems in vitro and in vivo is augmented by our modeling capabilities.

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che@engr.pitt.edu www.che.pitt.edu

Rational Design of Controlled Release Systems At the University of Pittsburgh, our laboratory has developed a unique technology that allows for the specific dosing and delivery needs of a particular therapy (e.g. therapeutic concentrations of chemokine over one month or longer) to be used as “input” to generate a unique and customized formulation “recipe”. This model-aided methodology can dramatically reduce (or even completely eliminate) the need for traditional trial and error based optimization of controlled release behavior. Importantly, this can be accomplished using well-established, biodegradable polymers that are biocompatible, biodegradable and have an extraordinary track record of safety and translatability with the United States Food and Drug Administration. This unique methodology is also not only is capable of saving months Figure 1: The Little Lab often uses the biocompatible, to years in development time, but biodegradable polymer poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) also able to uniquely predict a final (PLGA) to form controlled release microspheres formulation’s sensitivity to future changes (A). For aqueous drugs, proteins, and peptides, the polymer matrix contains a microemulsion of e in critical processing parameters, allowing ntrapped drug (B) that is controllably released as designs to be optimized for consistent the microsphere degrades. performance through scale-up for preclinical and clinical studies. Through projects funded on a number of NIH, NSF, DoD, State, and Private Institute-funded grants, we have developed not only the tools needed to experimentally design, build, and validate a wide variety of controlled release vehicles but also the expertise needed to troubleshoot common road-blocks in this formulation development process.

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL AND PETROLEUM ENGINEERING


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Wei Xiong, PhD, D.Eng

37min
pages 127-146

Jörg M.K. Wiezorek, PhD

2min
page 126

Guofeng Wang, PhD

2min
page 125

Jeffrey Vipperman, PhD

2min
page 124

Albert C. To, PhD

1min
page 123

Inanc Senocak, PhD

1min
page 121

Patrick Smolinski, PhD

1min
page 122

Jung-Kun Lee, PhD

3min
page 117

Ian Nettleship, PhD

2min
page 119

David Schmidt, PhD

2min
page 120

Scott X. Mao, PhD

2min
page 118

Tevis D. B. Jacobs, PhD

1min
page 116

Katherine Hornbostel, PhD

1min
page 115

Daniel G. Cole, PhD, PE

2min
page 114

William W. Clark, PhD

2min
page 113

Heng Ban, PhD, PE

2min
page 110

Minking K. Chyu, PhD

2min
page 112

Markus Chmielus, PhD

1min
page 111

M. Ravi Shankar, PhD

2min
pages 106-108

Jayant Rajgopal, PhD

2min
page 105

Paul W. Leu, PhD

1min
page 102

Lisa M. Maillart, PhD

2min
page 103

Amin Rahimian, PhD

1min
page 104

Youngjae Chun, PhD

3min
page 98

Renee M. Clark, PhD

2min
page 99

Joel M. Haight, PhD, P.E., CIH, CSP

2min
page 100

Daniel R. Jiang, PhD

1min
page 101

Karen M. Bursic, PhD

1min
page 97

Mary Besterfield-Sacre, PhD

2min
page 96

Mostafa Bedewy, PhD

1min
page 95

Minhee Yun, PhD

2min
pages 92-94

Gregory F. Reed, PhD

3min
page 88

Feng Xiong, PhD

2min
page 90

Jun Yang, PhD

3min
page 91

Guangyong Li, PhD

2min
page 86

Inhee Lee, PhD

2min
page 85

Hong Koo Kim, PhD

2min
page 83

Alexis Kwasinski, PhD

2min
page 84

Alex K. Jones, PhD

3min
page 82

Alan D. George, PhD, FIEEE

2min
page 79

Masoud Barati, PhD

2min
page 78

Brandon M. Grainger, PhD

2min
page 80

Mai Abdelhakim, PhD

1min
page 77

Radisav Vidic, PhD

2min
pages 75-76

Piervincenzo Rizzo, PhD

2min
page 73

Aleksandar Stevanovic, PhD, P.E., FASCE

2min
page 74

Carla Ng, PhD

2min
page 72

Lei Fang, PhD

3min
page 65

Alessandro Fascetti, PhD

2min
page 66

Sarah Haig, PhD

2min
page 68

Xu Liang, PhD

2min
page 70

Jeen-Shang Lin, PhD, P.E

2min
page 71

Andrew P. Bunger, PhD

2min
page 64

Melissa Bilec, PhD

2min
page 63

Judith C. Yang, PhD

2min
pages 60-62

Götz Veser, PhD

2min
page 58

Jason E. Shoemaker, PhD

1min
page 56

Tagbo Niepa, PhD

2min
page 54

Christopher E. Wilmer, PhD

1min
page 59

Sachin S. Velankar, PhD

2min
page 57

Giannis Mpourmpakis, PhD

2min
page 53

Badie Morsi, PhD

3min
page 52

James R. McKone, PhD

1min
page 51

Steve R. Little, PhD

2min
page 50

J. Karl Johnson, PhD

2min
page 47

John A. Keith, PhD

2min
page 48

Susan Fullerton, PhD

2min
page 46

Lei Li, PhD

1min
page 49

Robert M. Enick, PhD

2min
page 45

Eric J. Beckman, PhD

2min
page 44

David A. Vorp, PhD

2min
page 37

Jonathan Vande Geest, PhD

1min
page 36

Justin S. Weinbaum, PhD

1min
page 38

Ipsita Banerjee, PhD

2min
page 43

George Stetten, MD, PhD

2min
page 34

Savio L-Y. Woo, PhD, D.Sc., D.Eng

2min
page 39

Gelsy Torres-Oviedo, PhD

3min
page 35

Ioannis Zervantonakis, PhD

2min
pages 40-42

Mark Redfern, PhD

2min
page 29

Spandan Maiti, PhD

2min
page 28

Partha Roy, PhD

2min
page 30

Sanjeev G. Shroff, PhD

2min
page 33

Warren C. Ruder, PhD

1min
page 31

Joseph Thomas Samosky, PhD

2min
page 32

Patrick J. Loughlin, PhD

2min
page 27

Prashant N. Kumta, PhD

2min
page 26

Mangesh Kulkarni, PhD

1min
page 25

Takashi “TK” Kozai, PhD

2min
page 24

Alan D. Hirschman, PhD

1min
page 21

Tamer S. Ibrahim, PhD

5min
page 22

Mark Gartner, PhD

1min
page 20

Bistra Iordanova, PhD

1min
page 23

Richard E. Debski, PhD

1min
page 17

Neeraj J. Gandhi, PhD

2min
page 19

William Federspiel, PhD

2min
page 18

Lance A. Davidson, PhD

2min
page 16

Aaron Batista, PhD

4min
page 9

Rakié Cham, PhD

2min
page 13

Bryan N. Brown, PhD

1min
page 12

Tracy Cui, PhD

2min
page 14

Kurt E. Beschorner, PhD

2min
page 10

Moni Kanchan Datta, PhD

2min
page 15

Harvey Borovetz, PhD

1min
page 11

Steven Abramowitch, PhD

2min
page 8
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