Founders Professorship in Nanoparticle Research

Established in 2023, the Founders Professorship in Nanoparticle Research was made possible through support from the Penn Institute for RNA Innovation and is awarded to a faculty member at the Perelman School of Medicine pursuing the promise of RNA in science and medicine.

Current Chairholder
Vladimir Muzykantov, MD, PhD

Vladimir Muzykantov, MD, PhD is the Founders Professor in Nanoparticle Research and a strong collaborator across Penn’s School of Medicine. Dr. Muzykantov is a Member of the Institute of Medical Engineering, the Center for Cancer Pharmacology, the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics, the Center for Environmental Toxicology, and the Cardiovascular Institute. He also serves as Vice-Chair for Faculty Development in the Department of Pharmacology and is Founding Co-Director of the PSOM/SEAS Center for Targeted Therapeutics and Translational Nanomedicine (CT3N).

Dr. Muzykantov received an MD (Internal Medicine) in 1980 from First Moscow Medical School and went on to pursue training and research in drug delivery at the Institute of Experimental Cardiology in the National Cardiology Research Center, Moscow. In 1985, he took his PhD in Medical Sciences (Biochemistry). For nearly four decades, Dr. Muzykantov’s research has encompassed diverse aspects of vascular delivery and targeting of biological and other pharmacological agents for improvement of medical treatment of the vascular, hematologic, neurologic, cardiologic and respiratory maladies, with a focus on inflammation, thrombosis, and acute ischemia (organ transplantation, myocardial infarction, and stroke). He has published ~280 papers and edited a book, “Biomedical Aspects of Drug Targeting” (Kluwer, 2003). Dr. Muzykantov is co-inventor on about 20 granted US Patents and about the same number of applications for US and other countries’ patents.

Dr. Muzykantov is a sought after keynote and plenary speaker at international conferences and has received numerous awards and honors throughout his extensive career including AHA Established Investigator (1996), AHA Bugher Stroke Award (2000), Chair of Transatlantic Airway Conference on Targeting Molecular Signatures in Lungs (Luzerne, 2009), Co-Chair of Gordon Conference on Drug Carriers (2012) and of HLBI Division of Lung Diseases Workshop “Precision Therapeutics Delivery for Lung Diseases” (2014). In 2022, he was elected to the Fellowship College of the International Controlled Release Society.