The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
Colorful photo of a DNA model
The Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine
for the Prevention of Human Diseases

Mauro Ferrari, Ph.D.

Professor & Director, Center for NanoMedicine
Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine
Chair, Department of Biomedical Engineering
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston
President, Alliance for NanoHealth, Houston
Phone 713.500.2444; Fax 713.500.2462
Mauro.Ferrari@uth.tmc.edu

Dr. Mauro FerrariDr. Ferrari serves as Professor and Director of the Center for NanoMedicine at the Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, Chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Professor of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Professor of Bioengineering at Rice University, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, and President of the Alliance for NanoHealth, Houston.

Education: Dr. Ferrari’s degrees are in Mathematics (Padova, Italy, Dottore in Matematica 1985), and Mechanical Engineering (U.C. Berkeley, M.S. 1987, & Ph.D. 1989).  He attended medical school at Ohio State University (2002-04).

Prior Professional Experience: Dr. Ferrari began his academic career at the University of California, Berkeley, where he tenured in Material Science, Civil Engineering, and Bioengineering.  Upon recruitment to the Ohio State University, he served as the Edgar Hendrickson Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Internal Medicine, Mechanical Engineering, Materials Science and Associate Vice President, Health Sciences Technology and Commercialization, Associate Director of the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute and Director of the Biomedical Engineering Center.  Through an arrangement with OSU, Dr. Ferrari also served as Special Expert on Nanotechnology at the National Cancer Institute in 2003-2005, leading in the formulation, refinement, and approval of the NCI's Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, currently the world's largest program in medical nanotechnology.

Editorial and Advisory Board and Committees. Dr. Ferrari provides and has provided advisor services to many Federal, State, and International agencies, including the NCI, NHLBI, NIH, NASA, NSF, the DoD, the DoE, the National Research Council, the European Union, and the Governments of Italy and Canada. He is Editor-in-Chief of Biomedical Microdevices (BMMD): BioMEMS and Biomedical Nanotechnbology, which he established in 1995. BMMD is the first archival journal in the field, and ranks sixth among all biomedical engineering journals worldwide. Dr. Ferrari serves regularly as referee for many journals including the Nature periodicals, Science, and PNAS.

Awards and Honors. Dr. Ferrari’s contributions have been recognized by a variety of accolades, including: the Presidential Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation; the Shannon Director's Award of the National Institutes of Health; the Wallace H. Coulter Award for Biomedical Innovation and Entrepreneurship; and the Marzio Tremaglia Italiani nel Mondo Award from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Dr. Ferrari considers it a great honor that former advisees and trainees of his have gone on to serve on the faculty of distinguished institutions including the University of Texas, the University of California at Berkeley, MIT, Georgetown University, the University of California in San Francisco, the University of Florida, the University of Washington, the Ohio State University, Duke University, Boston University and the University of Illinois in Chicago.

Description of Research Projects. Dr. Ferrari’s group employs methods of semiconductor nanotechnology and mathematical modeling to develop solutions to problems in molecular medicine, with particular interest in applications in oncology and cardiology. He is regarded a pioneer of the fields of BioMEMS, biomedical nanotechnology, and multi-scale mathematics. Among his many ‘firsts’ are: silicon-based nanochannel technology, with its applications to controlled release drug delivery and immunoprotected cell transplantation; multistage particulates for drug delivery; the rational design of nanovectors; and  nanotextured chips for the selective enrichment of the plasma peptidome for early detection of pathological states. His group is actively developing these research directions, and adding more applications and fundamental explorations with regularity. Dr. Ferrari is extremely grateful to the many outstanding scientists he had the privilege of collaborating with, and to his many exceptional students and trainees for their invaluable role in all of the research accomplishments cited in these pages.

Recent Publications. The following are selected from a list of over 160 papers and chapters, 6 books and 29 issued US and International patents in Dr. Ferrari career:

  1. Y.F. Fin, J. Fang, and M. Ferrari, “Dispersion Analysis of Wave Propagation in Cubical-Tetrahedral Assembly by Doublet Mechanics”, Chinese Physics Letters, 21, No. 8, 2004, pp. 1562-1565.
  2. P. Decuzzi, S. Lee, B. Bhushan, and M. Ferrari, “A Theoretical Model for the Margination of Particles within Blood Vessels”, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 33, No. 2, February 2005, pp. 179-190.
  3. M. Ferrari, “Cancer Nanotechnology: Opportunities and Challenges”, Nature Reviews, Cancer, Vol. 5, No.3, March 2005, pp.161-171.
  4. F. Martin, R. Walczak, A. Boiarski, M. Cohen, T. West, C. Cosentino, and M. Ferrari.  “Tailoring Width of   Microfabricated Nano-Channels to Solute Size Can be Used to Control Diffusion Kinetics”, Journal of Controlled Release, Vol. 102, No. 1, January 2005, pp. 123-133.
  5. M. Ferrari, “Nanovector Therapeutics”, Current Opinions in Chemical Biology, Vol. 9, No. 4, August 2005, pp. 343-346.
  6. M. Ferrari and G. Downing, “Medical Nanotechnology: Shortening Clinical Trials and Regulatory Pathways?” BioDrugs, 2005; 19(4):203-210.
  7. C. Cosentino, F. Amato, R. Walczak, A. Boiarski, and M. Ferrari, “A Dynamic Model of Biomolecular Diffusion Through Two-Dimensional Nanochannels”, Journal of Physical Chemistry, Vol. 109, No. 15, April 21, 2005, pp. 7358-7364.
  8. V. Cristini, H. Frieboes, R. Gatenby, S. Caserta, M. Ferrari, and J. Sinek, “Morphological Instability and Cancer Invasion”, Clinical Cancer Research, October 2005, Vol. 11(19), pp. 6772-6779.
  9. M.C. Cheng, G. Cuda, Y. Bunimovich, M. Gaspari, J.R. Heath, H.D. Hill, C.A. Mirkin, A.J. Nijdam, R. Terracciano, T. Thundat, and M. Ferrari, “Nanotechnologies for Biomolecular Detection and Medical Diagnostic”, Current Opinion in Chemical Biology, Vol. 10, Issue 1, February 2006, pp. 11-19.
  10.  P. Decuzzi, F. Causa, M. Ferrari, and P.A. Netti, “The Effective Dispersion of Nanovectors Within the Tumor Microvasculature”, Annals of Biomedical Engineering, Vol. 34, No. 4, April 2006, pp. 633-641.
  11. M. Gaspari, M.C. Cheng, R. Terraccianol, X. Liu, A.J. Nijdam, E. di Fabrizio, E.F. Petricoin, L.A. Liotta, G. Cuda, S. Venuta and M. Ferrari, "Nanoporous Surfaces as Harvesting Agents for Mass Spectrometric Analysis of Peptides In Human Plasma" Journal of Proteome Research, Vol. 5, No. 5, May 2006, pp. 1261-1266.
  12. R. Terracciano, M. Gaspari, F. Testa, L. Pasqua, G. Cuda, P. Tagliaferri, M.C. Cheng, E.F. Petricoin, L.A. Liotta, M. Ferrari, S. Venuta, "Selective Binding and Enrichment for Low Molecular Weight Biomarker Molecules in Human Plasma after Exposure to Nanoporous Silica Particles", Proteomics, Vol. 6, Issue 11, June 2006, pp. 3243-3250.  
  13.   D. Geho, M.C. Cheng, K. Killian, M. Lowenthal, S. Ross, K. Frogale, A.J. Nijdam, N. Lahar, P. Herrmann, D. Johann,  G. Whiteley, M. Ferrari, E. Petricoin, and L. Liotta, "Fractionation of Serum Components Using Nanoporous Substrates" Bioconjugate Chemistry, Vol. 17, No. 3, May-June 2006, pp. 654-661.
  14. S. Sandeep, J.K. Sinek, H.B. Frieboes, M. Ferrari, J.P. Fruehauf, and V. Cristini, “Mathematical modeling of cancer progression and response to chemotherapy ”, Expert Review Anticancer Therapy. Vol. 6, No. 10, October 2006, pp. 1361-1376.
  15. P. Decuzzi and M. Ferrari, “The Adhesive Strength of Non-Spherical Particles Mediated by   Specific Interactions”, Biomaterials, 2006 Oct; 27(30): pp. 5307-1534. Epub 2006 Jun 23.
  16. S. Pricl, M. Ferrone, M. Fermeglia, F. Amato, C. Cosentino, M.M. Cheng, R. Walczak, and M. Ferrari, “Multiscale Modeling of Protein Transport in Silicon Membrane Nanochannels. Part 1. Derivation of Molecular Parameters from Computer Simulations”, Biomedical Microdevices, 2006 Dec; 8(4): pp. 277-290.
  17. F. Amato, C. Cosentino, S. Pricl, M. Ferrone, M. Fermeglia, M.M. Cheng, R. Walczak, and M. Ferrari, “Multiscale Modeling of Protein Transport In Silicon Membrane Nanochannels. Part 2. From Molecular Parameters to a Predictive Continuum Diffusion Model”, Biomedical Microdevices, 2006 Dec; 8(4): pp. 291-298.
  18.  F.M. Robertson, M.C. Cheng, J.R. Prosperi, M. Gaspari, R. Terracciano, K.B. Green-Church, D.D. Vandre, G. Cuda, and M. Ferrari, “Nanochips for Mining the Serum and Tumor Proteome: Novel Nanochips for Sensitive and Reproducible Identification of the Low Molecular Weight Proteome in Serum Isolated from Mice Bearing Highly Invasive Human Breast Tumor Xenografts”, Nanomedicine, 2006 Dec;2(4):295.
  19. A.J. Nijdam, M.C. Cheng, R. Fedele, D.H. Geho, P. Herrmann, K. Killian, V. Espina, E.F. Petricoin, L.A. Liotta, and M. Ferrari, “Physicochemically Modified Silicon as a Candidate Substrate for Protein Microarrays” Biomaterials, Vol. 28, Issue 3, January 2007, pp. 550-558.
  20.  F.M. Robertson, S.R. Mallery, V.K. Bergdahl-Costell, M.C. Cheng, P. Pei, J.R. Prosperi, and M. Ferrari, “Cyclooxygenase-2 Directly Induces MCF-7 Breast Tumor Cells to Develop into Exponentially Growing, Highly Angiogenic and Regionally Invasive Ductal Carcinoma Xenografts”, AntiCancer, 2007. (In press)
  21. P. Decuzzi and M. Ferrari, “The Role of Specific and Non-Specific Interactions in Receptor-Mediated Endocytosis of Nanoparticles”, Biomaterials, 2007. (Accepted)
  22. Y. Yang, M.C. Cheng, X. Hiu, D. Liu, R.J. Goyette, L.J. Lee, and M. Ferrari, “Low-Pressure Carbon Dioxide Enhanced Polymer Chain Mobility below the Bulk Glass Transition Temperature”, Marcomolecules 2007, 40, 1108-1111.

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