Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery

Biography

Dr. Hemachand Tummala is an Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He also serves as the Director, Vaccine Adjuvant research at Medgene Labs., Brookings and a Faculty Scholar at the College of Pharmacy. He has over 15 years of experience in disease biology, immunology and drug/vaccine delivery His research interests are in the area of design of various vaccine and drug delivery systems for cancer, and infectious diseases. He has over 30 publications and presentations, 1 book chapter, four pending patent applications. Dr.Tummala’s lab has discovered a novel bioactive polymer (TLR-4 agonist), inulin acetate. Using Inulin acetate they have engineered a pathogen mimicking vaccine delivery system (PMVDS). Based on its innovation PMVDS technology won the national award “2013-American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists- Innovation in Biotechnology award”. PMVDS technology is licensed to Medgene Labs., Brookings, SD for commercialization. It is currently being tested by three big animal health pharmaceutical companies in USA and Europe. Dr. Tummala teaches pharmaceutics courses to professional pharmacy students and graduate students. He has been a research mentor for 12 undergraduate students, five graduate students. He also serves in the editorial board of several journals and has served as a reviewer for national funding agencies. He is a recipient of “2013-Distinguished Researcher”, “2014-Student Association Teacher of the Year”, and “2015- Excellence in Teaching” awards from the college of Pharmacy.

Research Interest

Development of novel vaccine adjuvants and delivery systems. Development of cancer vaccines and viral vaccines using novel vaccine delivery systems.