Lonnie D. Shea is a world leading biomaterial scientist and co-inventor of the Cour nanoparticle technology platform. He currently serves as the Steven A. Goldstein Collegiate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. He received his BS and MS degrees in chemical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, and his PhD in Chemical Engineering and Scientific Computing while working with Jennifer Linderman at the University of Michigan, and was a postdoctoral fellow with David Mooney in the Department of Biologic and Materials Science in the Dental School at the University of Michigan.
Prior to his current role, he was on the faculty at Northwestern University where he established a research group working at the interface of tissue engineering, gene therapy, and drug delivery. He received an NSF CAREER Award in 2000, which helped start the work on developing new technologies based on combining biomaterials and gene/drug delivery. In addition, the Shea Lab works at the interface of regenerative medicine, biomaterials, and gene and drug delivery. The central theme for the various projects is creating synthetic environments which can be employed to molecularly dissect tissue formation or promote regeneration. These systems are being applied to clinical problems such as islet transplantation for diabetes therapies, nerve regeneration for treating paralysis, nanoparticles to target undesired immune responses, and most recently, diagnostics for cancer and immune system dysfunction. Dr. Shea has received funding from NIH, NSF, and multiple foundations, and has published in excess of 250 manuscripts on his research. Dr. Shea is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), a member of the editorial boards for multiple journals such as Molecular Therapy, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and the Journal of Immunology and Regenerative Medicine.