Tejal Desai, PhD
Tejal Desai is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences at University of California, San Francisco and head of the Therapeutic Micro and Nanotechnology Laboratory. Desai is an acknowledged world leader in therapeutic microscale and nanoscale technologies and is at the forefront of engineering the next generation of drugs, using the tools of semiconductor manufacturing from Silicon Valley to make miniscule medical devices that deliver a drug or multiple drugs directly to specific areas of concern. Results from her lab include the use of silicon nanowire coated silica beads as adhesive drug-delivery vehicles, especially to the human gut, the micro/nanoscale cage or biocapsule for controlled drug delivery, and nanostructured thin-film devices for controlled ocular drug delivery. An elected fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) the Biomedical Engineering Society, and the National Academy of Medicine, Desai is also a recipient of the prestigious Paul Dawson Biotechnology Award from the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy. She was selected as one of the “Brilliant 10” Top Scientists in the Nation by Popular Science, received the Visionary Science Award from the BioMEMS and Nanotechnology Society, and the Global Indus Technovator Award from MIT.