Mark E. Davis of the California Institute of Technology has received the Fred Kavli Distinguished Lectureship in Nanoscience. At the 2011 Materials Research Society Fall Meeting in Boston, he will present his lecture, “Fighting cancer with nanoparticle medicines—The nanoscale matters!” The lecture is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 27 at 7:00 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel.

Nanoparticle medicines, or nano-medicines, have the potential to provide “game changing” ways to treat cancer. Davis will demonstrate how physical insights at the nanoscale allow for the development of nanoparticles that can function as designed to fight diseases in animals and humans. The data from humans, he said, show how two independent nanoparticle cancer therapeutics have been translated from laboratory curiosities to experimental therapeutics in human clinical trials.

Davis is the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Professor of Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology and a member of the Experimental Therapeutics Program of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at the City of Hope institution. He has over 375 scientific publications, two textbooks, and over 50 patents.

His research efforts involve materials synthesis in two general areas; namely, zeolites and other solids that can be used for molecular recognition and catalysis, and polymers for the delivery of a broad range of therapeutics. He is the founder of Insert Therapeutics Inc., a company that focused on the use of cyclodextrin-containing polymers for drug delivery applications and Calando Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company that created the first RNAi therapeutic to reach the clinic for treating cancer. He has been a member of the scientific advisory boards of Symyx and Alnylam.

Among Davis’s honors are elections to the National Academy of Engineering (1997), the National Academy of Sciences (2006), and the Institute of Medicine (2011).

The Kavli Foundation supports scientific research, honors scientific achievement, and promotes public understanding of scientists and their work. Its particular focuses are astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience.