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Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, Ph.D. |
NOTE: This profile is final part of a series highlighting the 23 researchers who will be honored today at ceremony for UNMC’s 2009 Scientist Laureate, Distinguished Scientist and New Investigator award recipients.
- Name: Alexander “Sasha” Kabanov, Ph.D.
- Title: Parke-Davis Professor in Pharmaceutics and director of the Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine.
- Joined UNMC: 1994
- Hometown: Moscow
Describe your research in laymen’s terms.
We develop polymer therapeutics that can safely deliver biological agents to the site of action in the body and modulate cellular responses of cells to these agents to efficiently treat cancer and neurodegerative diseases.
How does your research contribute to science and/or health care?
We advance material science by developing new polymeric systems of nanoscale size and contribute to health by applying these materials to treat devastating human diseases.
Beyond grant funding, how do you measure success?
There are three measurable and essential factors to success:
- Quality and impact of scientific publications that advance knowledge;
- Quality and impact of students who carry the knowledge and scholarship across the globe.
- Translation of the discoveries into products that reach marketplace and make difference in human life.
I feel that I am on the right track with the first two. I look forward to be able to advance the third at UNMC.
List three things few people know about you.
- My best students become my best friends.
- I am a fourth generation of university professors in my paternal line.
- My mother was a ballerina and when I was little I believed that Bolshoi Theatre is a better place to work than Moscow State University. In fact, both are terrific.