Eva Harth | |
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Born | 1968 |
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Fields | Chemistry |
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Eva M. Harth FRSC is a German-American polymer scientist and researcher, and a fellow of both the Royal Society of Chemistry and the American Chemical Society. She is a full professor at the University of Houston and director of the Welch Center for Excellence in Polymer Chemistry.
She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Bonn (BS) and her graduate degrees at the University of Zurich (MS) and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (PhD). Under the guidance of Klaus Müllen, Harth completed her PhD on fullerene-based polymers with her thesis, Synthesis and properties of new fullerene adducts and fullerene-containing polymers, in 1998. [1]
Eva Harth moved to the United States as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow to the IBM Almaden Research Center. She worked with chemist Craig Hawker on polymeric nanoparticles and nitroxide polymerization for two years and then moved to a start-up company, XenoPort, Inc.
In 2004, she started at Vanderbilt University as an assistant professor, was promoted to associate professor in 2011, and served three years as director and DGS of the Interdisciplinary Materials Science Graduate Program (IMS).
During her time at Vanderbilt, she developed a nanosponge delivery system that is licensed by a start-up company.[ citation needed ] The biodegradable nanoparticle, composed of crosslinked polyester, contains tiny cavities that can store drug molecules. The nanoparticle breaks down in the body, releasing the drug in a predictable fashion, and can be further functionalized with a targeting peptide to favor drug delivery to cancerous cells. [2] [3]
Harth co-founded Revalida, a limited liability company, in 2009 with two other Vanderbilt colleagues; David Calkins, a director of research at the Vanderbilt Eye Institute; and Alice van der Ende, a PhD graduate student at the time. [4] The three co-founders are also the named inventors for several nanoparticle drug-delivery patents developed by Harth's research group. The patents are currently assigned to Vanderbilt University. [lower-alpha 1]
Revalida's initial mission was described as first focusing on treating glaucoma and retinal degeneration. The focus on eye disease therapies is also embedded as part of the company's name, formed using a combination of the word retina and portions of the founders' names: Eva, Alice and David. [4] [5]
Harth moved to the University of Houston as a full professor in 2017, where her research expanded into the area of metal-organic chemistry. In 2018, the group developed the metal-insertion light-initiated radical (MILRad) polymerization.
Her current research group focuses on incorporating functional groups into polyolefins, combining polymerization methodologies to design novel polymer structures containing polyolefins. The group has a long-standing interest in biomedical materials and technologies to increase the therapeutic function of synthetic and biological substances.
In 2022, the group developed Polyolefin Active Ester Exchange (PACE) process to give access to polyolefin block copolymers containing vinylic, acrylic and polyester and polyamide segments.[ citation needed ]
In 2017, Harth received a Gutenberg Chair Award from the University of Strasbourg [6] and was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. From 2009–2018, she served as an associate editor for Polymer Chemistry, a journal of the RSC. [7]
She is a member of the advisory board of Polymer Chemistry [8] and is an associate editor of the European Polymer Journal . [9]
Dendrimers are highly ordered, branched polymeric molecules. Synonymous terms for dendrimer include arborols and cascade molecules. Typically, dendrimers are symmetric about the core, and often adopt a spherical three-dimensional morphology. The word dendron is also encountered frequently. A dendron usually contains a single chemically addressable group called the focal point or core. The difference between dendrons and dendrimers is illustrated in the top figure, but the terms are typically encountered interchangeably.
Hot-melt adhesive (HMA), also known as hot glue, is a form of thermoplastic adhesive that is commonly sold as solid cylindrical sticks of various diameters designed to be applied using a hot glue gun. The gun uses a continuous-duty heating element to melt the plastic glue, which the user pushes through the gun either with a mechanical trigger mechanism on the gun, or with direct finger pressure. The glue squeezed out of the heated nozzle is initially hot enough to burn and even blister skin. The glue is sticky when hot, and solidifies in a few seconds to one minute. Hot-melt adhesives can also be applied by dipping or spraying, and are popular with hobbyists and crafters both for affixing and as an inexpensive alternative to resin casting.
Kathryn Uhrich is Dean of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, at The University of California, Riverside, and founder of Polymerix Corporation. She has received many awards for her research and work including the ACS Buck-Whitney Award and the Sioux Award. She was a fellow at both the National Academy of Inventors and the American Chemical Society in 2014.
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Paula Therese Hammond is a David H. Koch Professor in Engineering and the Head of the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She was the first woman and person of color appointed as head of the Chemical Engineering department. Her laboratory designs polymers and nanoparticles for drug delivery and energy-related applications including batteries and fuel cells.
Martina Heide Stenzel is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of New South Wales (UNSW). She is also a Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) University Ambassador. She became editor for the Australian Journal of Chemistry in 2008 and has served as Scientific Editor and as of 2021, as Editorial Board Chair of RSC Materials Horizons.
Eugenia Kumacheva is a University Professor and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of Toronto. Her research interests span across the fields of fundamental and applied polymers science, nanotechnology, microfluidics, and interface chemistry. She was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science in 2008 "for the design and development of new materials with many applications including targeted drug delivery for cancer treatments and materials for high density optical data storage". In 2011, she published a book on the Microfluidic Reactors for Polymer Particles co-authored with Piotr Garstecki. She is Canadian Research Chair in Advanced Polymer Materials. She is Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC).
Nanosponges are a type of nanoparticle, often a synthesized carbon-containing polymer. They are porous in structure, pores being about 1–2 nanometers in size, and can therefore be targeted to absorb small amounts of matter or toxin. Nanosponges are often used in medicine as targeted drug delivery systems, detoxification methods, or as a way of damage control after an injury. They can also be used in environmental applications to clean up ecosystems by performing tasks like purifying water or metal deposits. Their small size allows them to move quickly through substances, like water or blood, efficiently finding and attacking unwanted matter. Nanosponges are often synthetically manufactured but oftentimes include natural materials to improve their efficiency when injected into the body. Nanosponges are superior to microsponges in application as the smaller size allows less disruption into the system in which it is implemented therefore imposing less risk of failed or detrimental effects. The prefix "nano" implies that items of this size are measured on a scale of meters.
Valerie Sheares Ashby is an American chemist and university professor who currently serves as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She was the Dean of Trinity College of Arts and Sciences at Duke University from 2015 to 2022 and formerly chair of the chemistry department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 2012 to 2015. With her research group, she holds ten patents. On April 4, 2022, it was announced that Ashby would assume the position of president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is an Austrian pharmaceutical technologist, scientist, pharmacist, entrepreneur, inventor and professor at the Institute of Pharmacy, University of Innsbruck. His research centers on the areas of pharmaceutical sciences, drug delivery, controlled release, bionanotechnology and polymer engineering. He is the inventor of various technologies such as thiolated polymers for that he coined the name thiomers in 2000 and phosphatase triggered charge converting nanoparticles for mucosal drug delivery. From 2016 to 2018 he served as a member of the Scientific Committee of the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) of the European Union in Brussels giving advice on scientific priorities to be included in the Strategic Research Agenda for Horizon 2020. Since 2014 he is on the scientific advisory board of the Nicotine Science Center, Denmark. Andreas Bernkop-Schnürch is the founder of Mucobiomer Biotechnologische Forschungs- und Entwicklungs GmbH, Thiomatrix Forschungs- und Beratungs GmbH and Green River Polymers Forschungs und Entwicklungs GmbH. He is listed as a Highly Cited Researcher of the Institute of Scientific Information.
Niveen M. Khashab is a Lebanese chemist and an associate Professor of chemical Sciences and engineering at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia since 2009. She is a laureate of the 2017 L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science "for her contributions to innovative smart hybrid materials aimed at drug delivery and for developing new techniques to monitor intracellular antioxidant activity." She is also a fellow of the Royal Chemical Society, and a member of the American Chemical Society.
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Iain McCulloch is Professor of Polymer Chemistry, in the Department of Chemistry, at the University of Oxford, UK, a fellow and tutor in chemistry at Worcester College, and an adjunct professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Saudi Arabia, and a visiting professor in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London.
Christine Allen is a Canadian professor and the first associate vice-president and vice-provost for strategic initiatives at the University of Toronto. She served formerly as interim dean of the university's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. She is co-founder of Nanovista, a company focused on imaging of tumors. She also works as the associate editor of Molecular Pharmaceutics.
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Jin Kim Montclare is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at New York University. She creates novel proteins that can be used in drug delivery, tissue regeneration and as medical treatment. She is a 2019 AAAS Leshner Leadership Fellow and has been inducted to the AIMBE College of Fellows.
Theresa M. Reineke is an American chemist and Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota. She designs sustainable, environmentally friendly polymer-based delivery systems for targeted therapeutics. She is the associate editor of ACS Macro Letters.
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