Steven R. Little

Last updated
Steven R. Little
Portrait of Steven R. Little, PhD.png
Little in 2019
Born (1977-12-11) December 11, 1977 (age 46)
Alma mater Youngstown State University (BS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
Scientific career
Fields Controlled release, Pharmaceutical science, Drug delivery systems, Immunotherapies, Biomaterials, Regenerative medicine
Institutions University of Pittsburgh
Doctoral advisor Robert Langer
Website www.littlelab.pitt.edu

Steven R. Little (born 1977) is an American chemical engineer and pharmaceutical scientist. He currently holds the title of department chair, distinguished professor, George M. and Eva M. Bevier Endowed Chair, and the William Kepler Whiteford Endowed Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. He also holds secondary appointments in bioengineering, pharmaceutical sciences, immunology, ophthalmology and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Contents

Education

Little received his BS in chemical engineering from Youngstown State University, and PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, studying under Institute Professor Robert S. Langer. His dissertation was “Poly(β-Amino Ester)s as pH Sensitive Biomaterials for Microparticulate Genetic Vaccine Delivery.” [1]

Research

Following his PhD in 2005, Little joined the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh John A. Swanson School of Engineering in 2006 as an assistant professor. He was promoted to the rank of associate professor as well as chair of the department of chemical engineering in 2012; William Kepler Whiteford Endowed Professor in 2015; and distinguished professor by Chancellor Patrick Gallagher in 2021. [2] In 2024 he was appointed the Swanson School's George M. and Eva M. Bevier Endowed Chair. [3]

His research focuses on therapies that are biomimetic and replicate the biological function and interactions of living entities using synthetic systems. Areas of study include bioengineering, chemistry, chemical engineering, ophthalmology, and immunology, and the health issues addressed include autoimmune disease, battlefield wounds, cancer, HIV, Type I Diabetes, ocular disease, and organ transplantation.

He is the Principal Investigator of Little Lab, housed in Benedum Hall of Engineering, and the co-founder of Qrono Inc., [4] a pharmaceutical startup company based in Pittsburgh and focused on next generation cancer treatments. [5]

Awards and honors

Little was elected as a Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society in 2015; [6] the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2016; [7] and the American Association for the Advancement of Science [8] and National Academy of Inventors [9] in 2021. The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) elected him as Fellow in 2022, [10] and Little was among eight members of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) selected for elevation to Fellow status in 2024. [11]

He was elected to the board of directors of the Society for Biomaterials and served in that role from 2013-2015. [12] In June 2018 the Controlled Release Society appointed Little to its board as a director-at-large through 2021. [13]

In 2012, the Society for Biomaterials named Little as the recipient of its Young Investigator Award [14] and in 2018 the Controlled Release Society named Little the recipient of its Young Investigator Award. [15] [16] The Controlled Release Society in 2020 elected Little to its College of Fellows [17] and followed in 2021 by presenting Little with its Distinguished Service Award. [18] Little has received over 40 national and international awards including:

His teaching awards include the University of Pittsburgh Chancellor's Distinguished Teaching Award [30] and a Carnegie Science Award for Post-Secondary Education. [31] Community recognition includes Pittsburgh Magazine’s 40 Under 40, [32] named a “Fast Tracker” by the Pittsburgh Business Times, [33] and one of five individuals in Pittsburgh who are “reshaping our world” by Pop City Media.

Humanitarian causes

Little serves on the board of directors for EduNations, [34] an organization that establishes educational infrastructure by building schools, training teachers and providing children with free education in Sierra Leone, Africa.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert S. Langer</span> American scientist

Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">C. Daniel Mote Jr.</span> American mechanical engineer

Clayton Daniel Mote Jr. is the President Emeritus of the National Academy of Engineering. He served as the president of the NAE from July 2013 to June 2019. He also served as President of the University of Maryland, College Park from September 1998 until August 2010. From 1967 to 1991, Mote was a professor in mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as Vice Chancellor at Berkeley from 1991 to 1998. Mote is a judge for the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering.

Tobin Jay Marks is an inorganic chemistry Professor, the Vladimir N. Ipatieff Professor of Catalytic Chemistry, Professor of Material Science and Engineering, Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, and Professor of Applied Physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Among the themes of his research are synthetic organo-f-element and early-transition metal organometallic chemistry, polymer chemistry, materials chemistry, homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis, molecule-based photonic materials, superconductivity, metal-organic chemical vapor deposition, and biological aspects of transition metal chemistry.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chad Mirkin</span> American chemist

Chad Alexander Mirkin is an American chemist. He is the George B. Rathmann professor of chemistry, professor of medicine, professor of materials science and engineering, professor of biomedical engineering, and professor of chemical and biological engineering, and director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and Center for Nanofabrication and Molecular Self-Assembly at Northwestern University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Krzysztof Matyjaszewski</span> Polish-American polymer chemist (born 1950)

Krzysztof "Kris" Matyjaszewski is a Polish-American chemist. He is the J.C. Warner Professor of the Natural Sciences at the Carnegie Mellon University Matyjaszewski is best known for the discovery of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a novel method of polymer synthesis that has revolutionized the way macromolecules are made.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cato T. Laurencin</span> American surgeon

Cato T. Laurencin FREng SLMH is an American engineer, physician, scientist, innovator and a University Professor of the University of Connecticut.

Sung Wan Kim was a South Korean-American academic who worked as a distinguished professor of pharmaceutics and pharmaceutical chemistry at the University of Utah. He is the founder and co-director of the University of Utah's Center for Controlled Chemical Delivery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicholas A. Peppas</span> Greek chemical and biomedical engineer (b. 1948)

Nicholas (Nikolaos) A. Peppas is a chemical and biomedical engineer whose leadership in biomaterials science and engineering, drug delivery, bionanotechnology, pharmaceutical sciences, chemical and polymer engineering has provided seminal foundations based on the physics and mathematical theories of nanoscale, macromolecular processes and drug/protein transport and has led to numerous biomedical products or devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Subra Suresh</span> Indian-born American academic (born 1956)

Subra Suresh is an Indian-born American engineer, materials scientist, and academic leader. He is currently Professor at Large at Brown University and Vannevar Bush Professor of Engineering Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was Dean of the School of Engineering at MIT from 2007 to 2010 before being appointed as Director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) by Barack Obama, where he served from 2010 to 2013. He was the president of Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) from 2013 to 2017. Between 2018 and 2022, he was the fourth President of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU), where he was also the inaugural Distinguished University Professor.

Kristi S. Anseth is the Tisone Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, an Associate Professor of Surgery, and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her main research interests are the design of synthetic biomaterials using hydrogels, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Lovell</span> American engineer (1967–2024)

Michael R. Lovell was an American engineer and academic administrator, last serving as President of Marquette University. Lovell held the office from 2014 until his death in 2024. Lovell was the first President of Marquette University who was a layman and not a Catholic clergyman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samir Mitragotri</span> American chemist (born 1971)

Samir Mitragotri is an Indian American professor at Harvard University, an inventor, an entrepreneur, and a researcher in the fields of drug delivery and biomaterials. He is currently the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Prior to 2017, he was the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joel S. Schuman</span>

Joel S. Schuman, MD, FACS is Professor of Ophthalmology, the Kenneth L. Roper Endowed Chair, Vice Chair for Research Innovation, co-director of the Glaucoma Service at Wills Eye Hospital, Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems, Collaborative Community of Ophthalmic Imaging (CCOI) president, and American Glaucoma Society (AGS) Foundation advisory board chair. Prior to this he was the Elaine Langone Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Ophthalmology at NYU Langone Medical Center, NYU Grossman School of Medicine; Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Electrical & Computer Engineering at NYU Tandon School of Engineering and Professor of Neural Science in the Center for Neural Science at NYU College of Arts and Sciences. He chaired the ophthalmology department at NYU Langone Health, NYU Grossman School of Medicine 2016–2020, and was Vice Chair for Ophthalmology Research in the department 2020–2022. Prior to arriving at NYU in 2016, he was Distinguished Professor and Chairman of Ophthalmology, Eye and Ear Foundation Endowed Chair in Ophthalmology, Director of UPMC Eye Center (2003-2016) and before that was at Tufts University 1991–2003, where he was Residency Director (1991-1999) and Glaucoma and Cataract Service Chief (1991-2003). In 1998 he became Professor of Ophthalmology, and Vice Chair in 2001.

Nancy Makri is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutgsell Endowed Professor of Chemistry and Physics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, where she is the principal investigator of the Makri Research Group for the theoretical understanding of condensed phase quantum dynamics. She studies theoretical quantum dynamics of polyatomic systems, and has developed methods for long-time numerical path integral simulations of quantum dissipative systems.

Tan Weihong is a Chinese chemist. He is the University of Florida Distinguished Professor, V. T. and Louise Jackson Professor of Chemistry at the University of Florida, and also the Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Professor of Biology, and Director of the State Key Laboratory of Chemo/Biosensing and Chemometrics at Hunan University in China. He was elected an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2015 and The World Academy of Sciences in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rocky Tuan</span> Hong Kong medical researcher and bioengineer

Rocky Tuan Sung-chi is a Hong Kong medical researcher and bioengineer, currently the vice-chancellor and president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he served as distinguished visiting professor and director of the Institute for Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine prior to taking up the vice-chancellorship. Previously he was on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh, where he held a number of roles: Arthur J. Rooney Sr. Professor of Sports Medicine and the executive vice chair of the department of Orthopaedic Surgery, and a professor in the department of bioengineering. He was the director of the Center for Military Medicine Research and an associate director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Despite his position in Hong Kong, he continues to serve as the director of the University of Pittsburgh's Center for Cellular and Molecular Engineering. For the 2018 fiscal year, he was one of the top 25 highest-paid University of Pittsburgh employees.

Guillermo Antonio Ameer is the Daniel Hale Williams Professor of biomedical engineering at the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and Surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine of Northwestern University and is a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, Biomedical Engineering Society, American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Materials Research Society, and American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is an engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur.

Milan Mrksich is an American chemist. He is the Henry Wade Rogers Professor at Northwestern University with appointments in chemistry, biomedical engineering and cell & developmental biology. He also served as both the founding director of the Center for Synthetic Biology and as an associate director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern. Mrksich also served as the Vice President for Research of Northwestern University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Vorp</span>

David A. Vorp is an American bioengineer, researcher, entrepreneur, and academic administrator noted for his contributions to aortic aneurysm biomechanics and pathobiology, and tissue engineered vascular grafts. He currently holds the titles of Associate Dean for Research at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering and the John A. Swanson Professor of Bioengineering, with secondary appointments in the departments of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Surgery, Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, and the Clinical & Translational Sciences Institute at the University of Pittsburgh. He also serves as the co-director of the Center for Medical Innovation., the acting director of the university's GRID Institute, and the director of the Vascular Bioengineering Laboratory.

Valeria Paula Molinero is an Argentinian physicist who is the Jack and Peg Simons Endowed Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Utah. Her research investigates the simulation of the behavior of materials. She was awarded the American Physical Society Irving Langmuir Award in Chemical Physics in 2023.

References

  1. "Poly ([beta]-amino ester)s as pH sensitive biomaterials for microparticulate genetic vaccine delivery". DSpace@MIT. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Chemical Engineering. Retrieved 21 June 2018.
  2. Kovach, Paul. "University of Pittsburgh Appoints Steven Little as Distinguished Professor". Swanson School of Engineering Virtual Newsroom. Swanson School of Engineering. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  3. "Pitt Appoints Distinguished Professor Steven Little as the Bevier Endowed Chair". news.engineering.pitt.edu. Swanson School of Engineering. Retrieved 23 September 2024.
  4. "Leadership Team". Qrono Inc. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  5. "Qrono Inc - Company Profile and News". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 2023-08-23.
  6. "BMES List of Fellows". BMES.org.
  7. Little, Steven. "AIMBE College of Fellows Class of 2016". AIMBE. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  8. "2021 AAAS Fellows". aaas.org. American Association for the Advancement of Science. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  9. "Congratulations 2021 Class of Fellows" (PDF). academyofinventors.org. National Academy of Inventors. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  10. "Dr. Steve Little Among Newest Class of AAAS Fellows". MIRM. McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  11. Stauffer, Rebecca. "AAPS Elevates Eight Members to Fellow Status". AAPS.org. American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists. Retrieved 30 July 2024.
  12. "2016 SFB Elections: Biographies". Society for Biomaterials. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  13. "2018-2019 Board Announced". Controlled Release Society. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
  14. "Awards and Recognition of Advancements in the Field of Biomaterials". Society for Biomaterials. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  15. "Steven Little Honored with Controlled Release Society's Young Investigator Award". University of Pittsburgh. Pittwire. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  16. "Young Investigator Award Recipients". Controlled Release Society. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  17. "2020 College of Fellows". Controlled Release Society. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  18. "2021 Awards Announced". Controlled Release Society. Retrieved 27 April 2021.
  19. Little, Steven. "Beckman Young Investigators". Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  20. "Coulter Translational Research Awardees Announced". RegenerativeMedicine.net. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  21. "Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program" (PDF). dreyfus.org. Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 7 February 2022.
  22. "Chancellor's faculty awards announced". University of Pittsburgh. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  23. "Grants Database, RPB Grant Awards from 2010-2017 matching Little, Steven R / PhD". RPBUSA. Research to Prevent Blindness. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  24. Coyne, Justine (Jan 30, 2015). "Carnegie Science Center Awards recognize business, education leaders". Pittsburgh Business Times. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  25. "Awardees 1997 - 2017" (PDF). Carnegie Science Center. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  26. "Engineering Research Council, Curtis W. McGraw Research Award". American Society for Engineering Education. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  27. Satyanarayana, Megha (February 10, 2015). "Newsmaker: Steven Little". Tribune-Review. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  28. "Young Investigator Award Recipients". Controlled Release Society. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  29. "The Crucible Newsletter, Volume CIV, No. 3" (PDF). ACS Pittsburgh Section. Retrieved 8 November 2018.
  30. "Chancellor Nordenberg Names Winners of Distinguished Teaching, Research, and Public Service Awards" (PDF). Pitt Chronicle. University of Pittsburgh.
  31. "2013 Carnegie Science Awards winners to be recognized". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. January 31, 2013. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  32. "2014 40 Under 40 Awards". Pittsburgh Magazine. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  33. Mamula, Kris (July 1, 2015). "Fast Tracker: Steve Little, University of Pittsburgh". Pittsburgh Business Times. Retrieved 20 June 2018.
  34. "EduNations Board of Directors". edunations.org. Retrieved 20 June 2018.