Mark R. Prausnitz
Professor
Contact Information
Building: Petit IBB
Office:
1312
Phone: 404.894.5135
Fax: 404.894.2291
email
Mailing Address
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Chemical &
Biomolecular Engineering
311 Ferst Drive, N.W.
Atlanta, GA 30332-0100
Links
Mark R. Prausnitz
Education
B.S. 1988, Stanford University
Ph.D. 1994, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Bio
In addition to training graduate students in the laboratory, Dr. Prausnitz is actively involved with teaching undergraduate students in the classroom. His core courses are introductory classes on mass and energy balances and thermodynamics and the upper-division course on unit operations laboratory. An elective course developed by Dr. Prausnitz is entitled “Effective Communication for Professional Engineering,” which addresses oral and written communication in the context of a case study of the nicotine patch.
Another elective course, developed in collaboration with Dr. Bommarius, is entitled "Drug Design, Development, and Delivery." This course for senior undergraduates and graduate students exposes students to the interplay between multiple technical, as well as economic and societal factors that influence the creation of a successful pharmaceutical.
Dr. Prausnitz has co-authored more than 100 research articles, given 120 invited lectures to industry and academia, published 170 conference abstracts, holds close to 20 issued or pending patents, and has served as an expert witness. Among his honors are the NSF/NIH Scholar-in-Residence at the National Institutes of Health, CAREER Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, TR100 Young Innovator Award from Technology Review and Young Investigator Award and Outstanding Pharmaceutical Paper Award from the Controlled Release Society.
Research Interests
Dr. Prausnitz and his colleagues carry out research on biophysical methods of drug delivery using ultrasound, microneedles and other approaches. The success of drug and gene delivery is limited by the inability of drugs, proteins and DNA to cross biological barriers in the body. The most daunting barrier is that posed by lipid bilayers, which block transport into cells, into tissues, and into the body. The Prausnitz lab studies the effect of ultrasound and microneedles to selectively and reversibly disrupt those biological barriers and thereby deliver drugs into the body across the skin, into the eye, and into targeted cells through short-lived holes their membranes. Ultrasound studies focus on the mechanisms by which ultrasound disrupts membranes and drives intracellular delivery of molecules, as well as mechanisms of cell death. Microneedles studies address basic questions of drug transport, avoidance of pain, and insertion mechanics of microneedles in skin along with applied questions relating to drug and vaccine delivery and needle fabrication technologies. Additional studies address electroporation for drug and gene delivery, pore-forming peptides for transdermal delivery, theoretical and experimental studies of drug delivery to the eye, and enhanced transfection of plant cells for forestry biotechnology.