AADR Strides in Science

Dean Ho, Ph.D. is a professor in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine and co-director of the Jane and Jerry Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology at the University of California – Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Dentistry. He is also a professor of bioengineering and a member of the Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and California NanoSystems Institute. Previously he was an associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering at Northwestern University.  

Ho received his Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from UCLA. Today he leads one of the pre-eminent teams in the world that is developing nanodiamonds as drug delivery agents, and has pioneered multiple approaches towards improved therapeutic efficiency using engineering and nanotechnology-based approaches. In the area of chemotherapy, his team developed NDX, a nanodiamond-drug complex based upon the potent interaction of the diamond surface with doxorubicin, a commonly used cancer drug in the clinic that is also highly toxic. Through the synthesis of NDX, a marked enhancement in drug efficacy and reduced toxicity were demonstrated over clinical standards.