Dr. Peppas is the Fletcher S. Pratt Chair of Chemical Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmaceutics at the University of Texas at Austin, and serves as founding Chief Scientist for Appian Labs.
Peppas is the leading researcher, inventor and pacesetter in the field of drug delivery and controlled release. He is widely recognized as the father of modern drug delivery. He has set the fundamentals and rational design of drug delivery systems and biomaterials over the past 35 years. He is also an international leader in biomaterials and bionanotechnology, and has contributed seminal work in the field of feedback controlled biomedical devices. His contributions have been translated into more than twenty medical products with multi-million dollar markets. For the profound impact of these theories and analyses, Peppas has been recognized as the most cited and highly published author in drug delivery, biomaterials and drug delivery, and intelligent materials. He has served in numerous US government panels of NSF, NIH and other Federal Agencies. Among others he serves in the Nanotechnology Technical Advisory Group of the President. In addition he has served as a member of the Advisory Boards of eleven companies and as a consultant of more than 60 companies, law firms and brokerage firms. He received a Dipl. Eng. from NTU Athens (1971) and an Sc. D. from MIT (1973).
Peppas originated the novel muco- and bioadhesive systems that interact molecularly with the mucus and tissue and have been able to prolong bioavailability of proteins and peptides in the blood. He was the first to develop novel toxic-free poly(vinyl alcohol) gels. These gels became very successful articular cartilage replacement systems and for in situ replacement of vocal cords, a successful medical procedure. His group pioneered the use of hydrogels in drug delivery applications, including epidermal bioadhesive systems and systems for the release of theophylline, proxyphylline, diltiazem, and oxprenolol. More recently, he has developed new technologies of oral delivery systems for insulin and other proteins. Peppas has also developed feedback control devices, such as glucose-sensitive microsensors that can respond to abnormal glucose levels by releasing incorporated insulin to the blood at desired rates. Such feedback control systems could be perfected for use in treatment of diabetes. As a result of his work, a number of biomedical polymers and commercial delivery devices have been launched.
Peppas is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (USA) and the Académie Nationale (France). He is a Past-Chair of the College of Fellows of AIMBE, a Past-President of the Society for Biomaterials, a Past-President of the Controlled Release Society, a past Director of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), an inaugural Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering and Materials Research Societies, a founding Fellow of AIMBE and the Society for Biomaterials, and a fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, AIChE, AAAS and the American Society for Engineering Education.
An international ambassador of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering, he has received honorary doctorates in pharmacy from the Universities of Ghent (Belgium), Parma (Italy), and Athens (Greece). In addition, he has been a Visiting Professor at the Universities of Geneva, Paris (Orsay), Parma, Pavia, Naples, Berlin (Free University), Santiago de Compostela, Complutense (Madrid), Hoshi (Tokyo), Hacettepe (Ankara), Athens, Hebrew (Jerusalem) and Nanyang University (Singapore).
He has published more than 1,050 refereed publications, 350 proceedings and 450 abstracts, and is the inventor of 35 US and international patents. He is the coauthor or coeditor of 33 books and volumes, including the classic “Hydrogels in Medicine and Pharmacy”, a standard reference in the field of biomaterials with more than 6,000 citations, and of two pioneering monographs on bionanotechnology that appeared in the past five years. His pioneering contributions have attracted more than 28,000 citations making him one of the most cited chemical or biological scientists in the world and one of the three most cited biomedical engineers. Of particular note is his lifetime effort to rationalize the design and development of biomaterials, drug delivery systems and medical devices. This has led to the development of the mathematical and physicochemical foundations of these fields including several theories and equations, widely used now in biomedical engineering. These include the Peppas equation (for the analysis of the abnormal and highly non-Fickian release and delivery of drugs, peptides and proteins from controlled release devices), the Peppas-Merrill equation (for the analysis of protein transport through biomedical membranes), the Brannon-Peppas theory (the first theory to analyze the behavior of intelligent, ionic gels in multicomponent biological fluids), the Huang-Peppas interpenetration theory of tethered structures across biological tissues, and the Peppas-Ritger correlation which has more than 1,000 citations in the last 15 years. His modeling, biomaterials, cellular and drug delivery research has been funded continuously since 1980 by NIH and since 1978 by NSF.
He has been recognized by more than 100 international awards. These include the highest research recognitions from the Society for Biomaterials (the Founders Award for life time contributions (2005) and the Clemson Award for Basic Research (1992)), the highest research recognitions from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (the William Walker Award (2006), the Institute Lecture (2007) and the Jay Bailey Biological Award (2006) along with three other major AIChE awards), the highest recognitions of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (the 2002 Dale E. Wurster Award in Pharmaceutics, and the 1999 Research Achievement Award in Pharmaceutical Technology), the highest scientific recognitions of the Controlled Release Society (the 1991 Founders Award and the 2002 Eurand Award for Outstanding Contributions in Oral Drug Delivery) , the 2002 Newsmaker of the Year Award of the American Chemical Society, and the 2002 recognition as a Pioneer in Biomedical Engineering from the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society. He has received the highest scientific recognitions from both Universities with which he has been associated (the 2007 Career Research Excellence Award and the 2004 Hamilton Award from the University of Texas and the 2002 Sigma Xi Award for Best Research at Purdue University)
Peppas is not only an exceptional ambassador of the biomedical filed but also an eloquent teacher and educator. He has supervised the theses of more than 570 students, and other scientists including 75 PhDs, of which 33 are now professors in other Universities. Many of them have become leading biomedical scientists, engineers, physicians and medical professionals.
