The Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, along with the College of Pharmacy, Nursing, and Allied Sciences, has invited distinguished scientist Hamid Ghandehari to present a research lecture and to meet with department faculty and graduate students. He is scheduled to present "Engineering Nanoconstructs for Targeted Drug and Gene Delivery" on Monday, Nov. 16, at 1:30 p.m. in Sudro Hall, room 20A/20B.

Ghandehari, an expert in drug delivery innovation, joined the University of Utah in November 2007 as a USTAR faculty member of the Departments of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Bioengineering. He previously taught at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, where he was a professor of pharmaceutical sciences, founding director of the Center for Nanomedicine and Cellular Delivery, member of Greenebaum Cancer Center and faculty in the Maryland Bioengineering Program.

His research, funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation and other agencies, focuses on the design of new polymers for gene therapy of head and neck cancer, targeted delivery of antiangiogenic inhibitors, oral delivery of chemotherapeutics by polymeric carriers, assessing the biocompatibility and cellular trafficking of organic and inorganic nanoconstructs and design and development of stimuli-sensitive hybrid nanoparticles for controlled chemical delivery.

Ghandehari is executive editor of Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews and serves on editorial boards of the Journal of Controlled Release, Pharmaceutical Research, Nanomedicine: Nanotechnology, Biology and Medicine and the Journal of Bioactive and Compatible Polymers. He earned a bachelor's degree and a doctorate from the University of Utah.

This seminar is open to all persons interested in pharmaceutical and biomedical research. For more information, contact Jagdish Singh at 1-7943.