Biography

Medicinal chemist Chandra Bhattacharya is an assistant professor with UNLV's College of Sciences and founder of the university's messenger RNA (mRNA Nanomedicine Program. Her research interfaces  with the disciplines of bioengineering and drug delivery.

Bhattacharya has also explored personalized medicine, using carbohydrates and small molecules to target organs and cells to deliver mRNA. For example, her most recent projects have used detective work to crack the code for blood cancer and diabetes therapy — developing a nanoparticle, which could encase and protect the mRNA to make it possible to be administered as an injection that interacts with our immune systems' T-cells and immediately responds to cell changes in real time. The goal is to create revolutionary solutions that, unlike current treatment methods, are inexpensive and have a high success rate.

For her work on the development of glucose-responsive material for smart insulin, Bhattacharya received the Postdoctoral Fellowship Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) Postdoctoral Fellowship. She is also an inventor who holds several patents related to her tumor research.