Dr. David Putnam

Biography

David Putnam joined the College of Engineering at Cornell University in 2002. Before joining the engineering faculty, he was a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer. From 2000 to 2002, he held a joint appointment as a scientific co-founder of TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Johnson & Johnson in March 2005. Between 2008 and 2009, he served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at PureTech Ventures in Boston, MA, focusing on emerging technologies in the field of drug delivery. Putnam is a member of seven Editorial Advisory Boards, including the Pharmaceutical Research, Journal of Controlled Release, and Analytical Biochemistry. He has received funding from NIH, NSF, the Coulter Foundation, and the Department of Defense. He is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), which recognizes the top 2% of Biomedical Engineers in the United States. His research group emphasizes the design and synthesis of functional biomaterials using organic polymer chemistry and micro/molecular biology to address human health. His research interests include vaccine/adjuvant design and delivery, synthetic lubricants, surgical devices, and drug delivery systems.

Research Interests