David Putnam joined the College of Engineering at Cornell University in 2002. Prior to joining the engineering faculty, he was an NIH postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer. From 2000 until 2002, he held a joint appointment MIT and as a Scientific co-Founder of a start-up company, TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in March, 2005. In 2008-2009 he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at PureTech Ventrures in Boston, MA where he focused on emerging technologies in the field of drug delivery. He is currently a member of seven Editorial Advisory Boards including Pharmaceutical Research, Journal of Controlled Release, Analytical Biochemistry and Experimental Biology and Medicine. His funding sources include NIH, NSF, the Coulter Foundation and the Department of Defense. He is a Fellow of AIMBE (reserved for the top 2% of Biomedical Engineers in the United States) and the Coulter Foundation. He received his B.S. in Pharmacy from Union University and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from the University of Utah.
The Putnam research group focuses on the design and synthesis of functional biomaterials. Using organic polymer chemistry and micro/molecular biology, we build biomaterial from first principles and apply them to human health. Research areas include vaccine/adjuvant design and delivery, synthetic lubricants, surgical devices and drug delivery systems.
Engineering principles for biomedical applications.
An interdisciplinary research team received a five-year, $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop a new generation of biosynthetic lubricants that have the potential to treat... Read more about Interdisciplinary group creating biolubricants to combat arthritis
Meinig School student team of Molly Eron ’23, Danielle Frye ’23, Katie McGarty ’23, Veronica Vila ’23 and Chenglin Zhu ’23 won a $2,500 Ronald ’57 and Frederick ’86 Fichtl Innovation Award for My IUD, their smart contraceptive device, which alerts users to movement or issues with their intrauterine device. Read more about Celebration honors student, alumni entrepreneurs
Endowed chairs are the highest faculty honor at Cornell. Read more about David Putnam elected Samuel B. Eckert Professor in Engineering
