Kim Wins NSF CAREER Award

MSE assistant professor Minkyu Kim recently earned the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award, the foundation’s most prestigious recognition of early-career faculty with potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.

He is developing a protein-based drug delivery vehicle that imitates the properties of red blood cells, in essence masquerading as an insider to move through the filters undetected.

Filtering out foreign materials is one way the human body protects itself. However, these built-in protections, including the kidneys and spleen, also remove foreign materials meant to do good. This means physicians often administer bigger doses of lifesaving or life-changing drugs, such as chemotherapy and multiple sclerosis treatments, to ensure enough gets through to treat disease.

“A red blood cell is about 7 micrometers in diameter, and they go through microcapillaries, which are a lot smaller than that,” said Kim, also a member of the BIO5 Institute and professor of biomedical engineering. “When it needs to move through a small space, its structure can be extended by protein unfolding, but once the stresses are removed, the original structure returns. A red blood cell can do this a thousand times and continue to show the same mechanical behavior.”