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Chemistry professor Joe DeSimone receives national recognition

Professor Joseph DeSimone pictured in front of the roll-to-roll particle-fabrication unit housed at UNC-Chapel Hill's Caudill Labs. Roll-to-roll fabrication technology is used in the manufacture of vaccines and medicines.
Professor Joseph DeSimone pictured in front of the roll-to-roll particle-fabrication unit housed at UNC-Chapel Hill's Caudill Labs. Roll-to-roll fabrication technology is used in the manufacture of vaccines and medicines.

CORRECTION: Due to a reporting error, a previous version of this story incorrectly stated the name of one of Joseph DeSimone’s most well-known inventions. He invented a bio-absorbable coronary heart stent. The story has been updated to reflect this change. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.

With his election earlier this month to the Institute of Medicine, he has joined a select group of accomplished individuals to be named to all three U.S. National Academies. He is the first professor in North Carolina to receive this esteemed honor.

Prior to the Institute of Medicine, DeSimone was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2005 and the National Academy of Sciences in 2012. He said he is excited about the honor as a recognition of his research.

“We have been fostering what’s referred to as ‘convergent research,’ and it is a validation of our approach in a really significant way,” he said.

Convergent research is a collaboration of different approaches in order to examine and solve a problem. DeSimone works in many different fields such as chemistry, physics and engineering in order to create inventions to improve the lives of many.

Radiation oncology professor Andrew Wang accredits DeSimone’s success to his ability to bring his ideas to life.

“He’s got the full package of being able to translate science. He’s not just a scientist; he’s an innovator. He’s an inventor,” Wang said.

“He’s UNC’s treasure.”

DeSimone attributes his success to his liberal arts undergraduate education, the collaborative environment at UNC and the entrepreneurial environment in which he conducts his research.

“(Liberal arts training) gives you a framework for making connections where it may not be so obvious where the connections are, and the very best ideas, I think, you emanate through simple connections that never were made between existing ideas,”

he said.

Chemistry professor Ed Samulski remembers interviewing DeSimone for a Department of Chemistry position at UNC in 1988.

“My colleagues did not want to interview Joe because of his lack of pedigree. When they met him though, my colleagues fell in love with him,” Samulski said.

“It was apparent that he was already thinking about bigger and better things.”

One of his most well-known inventions is a bioabsorbable coronary heart stent that 10,000 people have used in more than 60 countries.

Samulski said he is proud to have been DeSimone’s mentor since the beginning of his career at UNC.

“I consider him my academic son,” Samulski said. “It is pleasing to bask in the reflective glory of your children.”

Despite all of the time he devotes to research, DeSimone still teaches at both UNC and N.C. State University.

Wang admires this about him.

“He cares a lot about his students,” he said. “It’s not just about Joe.”

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