Joseph DeSimone, a chemist and one of the top researchers at UNC-Chapel Hill, has accepted an appointment as an adjunct member at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Cancer Nanocenter.

As Sarah Avery reports, the appointment is part of an effort to broaden the geographic base of DeSimone's work in North Carolina, and build Sloan-Kettering’s capabilities in nanomedicine.

DeSimone, named by The News & Observer in 2008 as the Tar Heel of the Year, has spent a career at UNC-Chapel Hill in cutting edge research. In his early work, he developed a process that eliminated toxins from the dry cleaning industry. More recently, his lab created tiny particles that can be tailor-made in different shapes for use in medicine and other applications.

That technology is now the focus of a company DeSimone founded, Liquidia Technologies.

“One of the limitations in the field of nanomedicine is the shortage of scientists trained in the key technologies of this field. Joe’s collaboration in cancer therapeutics at UNC has had a major impact on our program and will undoubtedly enhance work being done at Memorial Sloan Kettering,” said Shelton Earp, Director of UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, where DeSimone is a member.

A Durham company developing new vaccines and other products using tiny particles has raised $20 million in venture capital financing.

Liquidia Technologies plans to use the money to continue clinical testing of its experimental vaccine based on nanotechnology.

The company, which employs 46, previously raised more than $30 million in venture financing. In addition, Liquidia and its founder, N.C. State and UNC-Chapel Hill chemist Joseph DeSimone, won a $3 million federal grant in December.

The latest funding will carry Liquidia "well into 2011" and pay to hire at least 10 new workers to prepare for human testing later this year, CEO Neal Fowler said. "You celebrate for about a day, then it's back to execution."

Liquidia Technologies will receive about $3 million in funding from a division of the U.S. Commerce Department to further develop a process of making vaccines and other products from tiny particles.

The funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology follows more than $30 million in venture capital financing that Liquidia has attracted.

The Durham-based company is using so-called nanotechnology to find new medicines and other products. Its PRINT manufacturing process allows the company to produce precisely engineered particles for various uses.

Gov. Bev Perdue will present the 2009 North Carolina Awards, the state's highest civilian honor, to six North Carolinians tonight in Raleigh.

The recipients include businessmen who represent two important parts of the state's economy. Former banker Hugh McColl will be honored for public service. And Joseph DeSimone, co-founder of Liquidia Technologies and researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State, will be honored for his contributions to science.

Other recipients include Gerald Barrax for literature, Betty Ray McCain for public service, and Mark Peiser and Bo Thorpe for fine arts.

Perdue will present the awards at an 8 p.m. ceremony at the N.C. Museum of History in downtown Raleigh. For more information, visit the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources here.

Three UNC Chapel Hill scientists have received prestigious National Institutes of Health awards that target high-risk research and innovation.

They are Joseph DeSimone, Klaus Hahn and Mark Zylka.

DeSimone received one of 18 Pioneer awards, which honors a scientist's creative in proposing pioneering biomedical and behavioral reserch. The award is worth up to $500,000 a year for five years.

DeSimone, a chemist with faculty appointments at both UNC-CH and N.C. State, will use the award to develop new methods to deliver proteins, antibodies and nucleic acids to specific locations in the body. The research will build on DeSimone's work.
If DeSimone's name rings a bell, this may be why.

Hahn and Zylka received the T-RO1, or "Transformative" awards, which free scientists from budget restraints and allow them to propose new, bold ideas that may require significant resources.

Hahn, a pharmacologist with the UNC-CH schools of medicine and pharmacy, is working with Harvard researcher Gaudenz Danuser to find new ways to measure how information flows through cells. Hahn says cellular signaling lies at the heart of most cell behavior.

Zylka, an assistant professor of cell and molecular physiology in the medical school, will look for new ways to provide pain relief without serious side affects. He will utilize medicinal chemistry to synthesize inactive compounds to at turn to active form once in the body.

For more on these awards, click here.

Three Triangle scientists have won prestigious awards to further their research.

Tannishtha Reya, an associate professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, and Joseph DeSimone, a chemistry professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State, each have received this year's National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer award. The award comes with a five-year, $2.5 million grant.

Also at Duke, Michel Bagnat, assistant professor of cell biology, won an NIH Director's New Innovator award. That includes a $1.5 million grant over five years. Bagnat won for his research on cystic fibrosis.

Micell Technologies, a small Raleigh company in the early stages of developing a new type of drug-coated stent to treat heart disease has raised $5 million in financing.

Liquidia Technologies scored $7 million in venture capital this month to continue refining chemotherapy and other treatments not to attack healthy tissue. Now the Durham biopharmaceutical company is moving forward with developing a vaccine and testing it on people as early as next year.

Liquidia's technology can mold nanoparticles into desired shapes and sizes to target specific tissue. Currently, treatments like chemotherapy work like napalm, a scorched earth blast that destroys healthy tissue along with tumors.

This month's round of venture capital was led by Canaan Partners, Pappas Ventures and New Enterprise Associates, bringing the company's total raised to $31.5 million.

Fresh off receiving his doctorate, chemist Joe DeSimone had plenty of offers to ply his trade in private industry. But he wanted to get into academia. But there was little interest, particularly since DeSimone hadn't done any postdoctoral research, a customary piece of the resume for young professors in the sciences.

At UNC Chapel Hill, chemist Ed Samulski saw something in DeSimone. But it took some doing. Samulski had to convince others on the chemistry faculty that DeSimone was worth the risk.

Phew.

That was back in 1990. DeSimone was hired in Chapel Hill and hasn't looked back. Now a lauded researcher and entrepreneur, DeSimone, now just 44, has established himself as a leader in his field and raised the profile of UNC-CH's already well-respected chemistry department.

And this past weekend, DeSimone became the News & Observer's Tar Heel of the Year.

Have a read.