Sandro R. da Rocha

Dr. Sandro R.P. da Rocha received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin in 2000. He then took a postdoctoral position also at UT Austin, in Chemistry and Biochemistry, from 2000 to 2002. He joined the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at Wayne State University in 2002, and became Associate Professor in 2008. He is also holds an Adjunct Professor position at Universidade Tiradentes (Aracaju, Brazil) in the Department of Medicine and in the Biotechnology Graduate Program. The research focus in the da Rocha group is in the broad area of Nanomedicine. Our goal is to develop innovative drug and gene nanocarriers and their formulations for the regional and systemic delivery of therapeutics to and through the lungs. We aim at designing carriers that modulate the transport of the therapeutic molecules across the lung epithelial barrier, and are capable of targeting specific cell populations and intracellular organelles. We seek to achieve our objectives by engineering carriers with controlled morphology, size, and surface chemistry. We explore both experimental tools and molecular modeling to achieve these goals, with work in polymer chemistry and characterization, in vitro studies, and in collaboration with our colleagues in the Medical School and Pharmaceutical Sciences, also in vivo studies. Nanocarriers are of great relevance as they provide opportunities to controllably release and target the payload, and at the same time to protect sensitive cargo. This is a highly multidisciplinary work, involving students with different backgrounds form Molecular Biology, to Polymer Science. Dr. da Rocha has nearly 50 publications, including several book chapters and patents. He has graduated several PhD and masters students who are now in various positions in research, government and academia. Dr. da Rocha has also advised a number of undergraduate students, many of whom continued their graduate studies.

Biography Updated on 30 May 2013

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