Name:	Leaf Huang, Ph.D.
Affiliation:	University of North Carolina
Title:	Fred N. Eshelman Distinguished Professor and Chair Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina

Leaf Huang received a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Michigan State University in 1974. He was a Professor of Biochemistry at University of Tennessee, Knoxville, before moving to The University of Pittsburgh in 1991. He moved from the School of Medicine to the School of Pharmacy in 1999 to become the Joseph Koslow Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Director of the newly established Center for Pharmacogenetics. Dr. Huang's research has been in the area of gene therapy and drug delivery. He has pioneered the liposome non-viral vector and has produced the vector for the first clinical trial in 1992. His current work centers on further improvement of liposome and naked DNA vectors for gene transfer in tumor and lung, and the use of ligand targeted plasmid and synthetic DNA for gene transfer in the liver. These technologies are being tested in animal models for gene therapy of cancer, wound healing and pulmonary disorders. He is also developing intravesical drug delivery system for treating hypersensitive bladder. One of the vectors developed in his lab, LPD nanoparticles, can also be used to deliver peptide and protein antigens to the dendritic cells to stimulate both protective and therapeutic immune responses against HPV+ cervical cancer in a mouse model. Dr. Huang's research has been supported by NIH and other agencies for the last 28 years. He has authored or co-authored more than 260 peer-reviewed papers and more than 90 reviews and book chapters. He is also the inventor or co-inventor for 13 US and foreign patents. Dr. Huang is active in several professional societies. He was the chairman of the non-viral gene therapy committee of the American Society of Gene Therapy and has organized several workshops for the Controlled Release Society and a biannual meeting of the Liposome Research Days. Dr. Huang also co-founded two biotech start-up companies. For further information, please see his webpage at pharmacy.unc.edu/huang/.

BS (Physics, National Taiwan University, Taiwan, 1968
PhD (Biophysics), Michigan State University, Michigan, 1974
Postdoctoral Fellow, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Baltimore, Maryland 1974-76

Leaf Huang, Ph.D.
University of North Carolina
School of Pharmacy
CB# 7360
Chapel Hill, NC 27599
Phone: (919) 843-0736
Fax: (919) 966-0197
leafh@unc.edu
pharmacy.unc.edu/huang/

• Gene therapy with special emphasis in the development of non-viral vectors
• Gene therapy for inherited disease
• Drug delivery

Lui, V. W. Y., He, Y., Falo, L. and Huang, L. Systemic administration of naked DNA encoding IL-12 for the treatment of HPV-DNA positive tumor. Human Gene Therapy. 13: 177-185, 2002.

Tan, Y., Zhang, J. and Huang, L. Co-delivery of NF-KB decoy-related oligodeoxynucleotide improves LPD-mediated systemic gene transfer. Molecular Therapy. 6: 804-812, 2002.

Liu, F. and Huang, L. Non-invasive gene delivery to the liver by mechanical massage. Hepatology. 35:1314-1319, 2002.

Chesnoy, S., Lee, P., and Huang, L. Intradermal injection of transforming growth factor-b1 gene enhances wound healing in genetically diabetic mice. Pharmaceutical Research. 20: 345-350, 2003.

Dileo, J., Banerjee, R., Whitmore, M., Nayak, J., Falo, L., and Huang, L. Lipid-Protamine-DNA-mediated antigen delivery to antigen presenting cells results in enhanced anti-tumor immune responses. Molecular Therapy, 7:640-648, 2003.