Devika Manickam, Associate Professor, Duquesne University

Devika S Manickam received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from Wayne State University (Detroit, MI). She started her independent lab in 2016 as an Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutics at the School of Pharmacy, Duquesne University (Pittsburgh, PA). Her laboratory is identifying novel therapeutic strategies for delivery ‘‘to’’ the blood–brain barrier—an under-explored target for brain drug delivery. Her laboratory develops lipid nanoparticle- and EV-based systems for the delivery of small molecule, nucleic acid and protein drugs. Importantly, her laboratory has championed the idea of harnessing the innate EV mitochondrial load as a therapeutic cargo, in addition to engineering EVs for the delivery of exogenous drugs. Prof. Manickam has published over 40 papers in leading drug delivery journals including the Journal of Controlled Release, Biomaterials and Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews. She is one of the recipients of the 2022 Young Innovator award in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering. She also serves as an Assistant Editor at the Journal of Controlled Release.