The Schwendeman laboratories involves the use of mechanistic approaches to control the release of biomacromolecular drugs, vaccine antigens, and challenging small molecules (e.g., hydrophobic anticancer drugs) from biodegradable polymers.
Dr. Steven P. Schwendeman is the Ara G. Paul Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Professor of Biomedical Engineering, and the Biomaterials and Drug Delivery Thrust Leader of the University of Michigan Biointerfaces Institute. He received a BSE in chemical engineering (1986) and a PhD in pharmaceutics (1992) from the University of Michigan. Dr. Schwendeman continued his education as a National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow from 1992–1995 in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
His research has appeared in Nature Biotechnology, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Angewandte Chemie International Edition, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Journal of Biological Chemistry, Macromolecules, Biomaterials, Journal of Controlled Release, Molecular Pharmaceutics, Pharmaceutical Research, Vaccine, and many other prestigious journals.
After developing iontophoretic drug delivery implants in his PhD training, he has made significant advances in poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) controlled release systems for small and large molecules over the last two decades. His current research interests include physical chemistry and engineering of PLGA and related delivery systems, aqueous microencapsulation of large molecules in biodegradable polymers, stability of peptides and proteins, vaccine delivery, tissue engineering, and local/regional drug delivery to the eye, brain, head and neck, and diabetic wounds.
Our laboratory specializes in drug delivery, with an emphasis in controlled release. Currently we are investigating 4 primary research projects.
Rae Sung received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Life Sciences and Biotechnology from Korea University in 2007 and 2009, where his research focused on the development of small molecule and siRNA delivery systems using liposomes and cationic drug-derived lipid nanoparticles for cancer therapy. He joined the Schwendeman Lab in 2011 as a Ph.D. student and received his Ph.D. degree in 2016. He is continuing his work as a postdoctoral research fellow, working on the development of long-acting PLGA/antibody formulations for intravitreal delivery.
Directory Profile
Email: [email protected]
Tinghui (Tina) obtained her B.S. degree in Applied Chemistry from Hebei University of Science and Technology, China in 2011. Then she joined the Dorn group at Virginia Tech for Ph.D. study. Her research included characterization and functionalization of metallofullerenes for biomedical application. During the Ph.D. journey, she completed summer internships at Genentech and Merck for PLGA microspheres formulation and accelerated release, respectively. She started working in Schwendeman Lab as a postdoctoral research fellow since 2017.
