Biomaterials Award Announcement 2022

Biomaterials Global Impact Award and the Biomaterials Award for Young Investigator

Biomaterial is pleased to announce the winners of Biomaterials Global Impact Award and Biomaterials Award for Young Investigator for 2022.

The Biomaterials Global Impact Award aims to recognize distinguished research and development accomplishments in the field of biomaterials. The recipient for the Award for 2022 is Professor Nicholas Peppas of The University of Texas at Austin.

Nicholas A. Peppas is a distinguished chaired professor in Biomedical and Chemical Engineering, Pediatrics, Surgery and Pharmacy at the University of Texas at Austin. Over the past 47 years his group has developed a wide range of hydrogels as biomaterials for non-thrombogenic surfaces, articular cartilage, contact and intraocular lenses, vocal cords, dialysis membranes and  drug delivery systems for delivery of drugs, peptides and proteins. 1,700 publications, IF of H=194 (174,000 citations). Numerous US patents issued or pending, 3 start-up companies. Awards include NAE Founders Award, NAM Adam Yarmolinsky Award, AAPS Global Leader and Distinguished Pharmaceutical Scientist Awards. Member of 17 Academies including NAE, NAM, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, National Academy of Inventors, Academia Europaea, and national Engineering/Science Academies of  Canada, India, China, Korea, France, Spain, Greece, Romania. He is the Editor-in-Chief of “Regenerative Biomaterials” (Oxford). He holds a DiplEng from NTU Athens (1971), a ScD from MIT (1973) and 13 honorary doctorates and professorships. Peppas was Editor-in-Chief of “Biomaterials” for 21 years, from 1982 to 2003.

The Biomaterials Award for Young Investigator recognizes and encourages early career researchers in biomaterials science with outstanding contributions to the field. The recipients of the award in 2022 are Dr. Susan Thomas of Georgia Institute of Technology and Dr. Thanh Duc Nguyen of University of Connecticut.

Susan Napier Thomas is a Woodruff Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the Parker H. Petit Institute of Bioengineering and Bioscience at the Georgia Institute of Technology where she holds adjunct appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Biological Science and is a member of the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University. Prior to this appointment, she was a Whitaker postdoctoral scholar at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering cum laude from the University of California Los Angeles and her Ph.D. in Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering from The Johns Hopkins University. For her contributions to the field, she has been recognized with the 2018 Young Investigator Award from the Society for Biomaterials and the 2013 Rita Schaffer Young Investigator Award from the Biomedical Engineering Society. Her interdisciplinary research program is supported by the National Cancer Institute, the Department of Defense, the National Science Foundation, and the Susan G. Komen Foundation, amongst others.

Dr. Nguyen is an associate professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Connecticut (UConn). He joined UConn since 2016 to perform an interdisciplinary research at the interface of medicine, materials and nano/micro-technology. He invented a platform technology, so-called SEAL (StampEd Assembly of Polymer Layers), to create sophisticated 3D microstructures of safe medical polymers. His research group at UConn has further improved the SEAL method to create a novel single-administration self-boosting microarray (MA) patch to deliver longitudinal does of thermally stabilized vaccines, antibodies, and other therapeutics. Dr. Nguyen also pioneered the field of “biodegradable piezoelectrics” in which his lab developed new biodegradable piezoelectric materials and employed the materials to create bionic self-stimulated tissue scaffolds, implanted biodegradable force-sensors and resorbable brain-treatment ultrasound transducers. Dr. Nguyen received several awards including the CRS Transdermal and Mucosal Delivery Focus Group Young Investigator Award (2021) and ACell Young Investigator Award for Regenerative Medicine (2020) etc.

An Award Ceremony will be held on September 5^th 2022, 17:15-18:45 during the 32nd Annual Conference of the European Society of Biomaterials in Bordeaux, France. Winners will present their recent works (in person or virtually).

Collection of published articles of Awardees in journal Biomaterials will also be displayed in our journal homepage with free access for a limited time.

Congratulations to all the winners of the awards in 2022.

Editorial Team of Biomaterials