Shady Farah

Biography

Neubauer Asst. Professor Shady Farah
Asst. Prof. Farah is a highly passionate young innovator and scientist. He holds a Ph.D. (direct track) in Medicinal Chemistry at HUJI-Faculty of Medicine, School of pharmacy – Israel under the supervision of Prof. Avi Domb (Currently Israel’s Chief Scientist) and a BSc in Chemistry specialized in Medicinal Chemistry, HUJI. Following a productive 5 years of postdoc training at Prof. Daniel Anderson/Prof. Robert Langer Lab at MIT (at Koch Institute and Chemical Engineering Department) & BCH/Harvard Medical School, he joined the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology at the age of 32 as an assistant professor. At the Technion, he is leading the Laboratory for Advanced Functional/Medicinal Polymers and smart drug delivery technologies, supervising a large interdisciplinary team of postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students, and technicians, across diverse fields of Biomedical, Material Science, Medicinal Polymers, and Chemical & Biochemical Engineering, Medicine as well as Drug Delivery. So far, he published more than 55-papers (35 of them during his PhD!!) in first-tier journals (e.g. Nature Materials & Nature Biomedical Engineering, etc.), 5 patents, and 1 book (By Royal Society of Chemistry, Antimicrobial Materials for Biomedical Applications). His work holds over 96,000 reads, and 3300 citations with an h-index of 20 (i10-index stands on 28). Also, he won several prestigious awards and recognitions among them: named a Semi-finalist (the 100 names list) in Global MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 competition (2021). Neubauer Asst Prof Award (2019). MAOf Fellowship for Outstanding Young Researchers – Assistant Professor (2019). Excellence Postdoctoral Fellowship, for Outstanding Postdoctoral students, Council for Higher Education, Israel (2016-2018). Postdoctoral Research has chosen to be part of the exhibition ‘True Beauty – Stories on Research and Imagination’, at Stedelijk Museum Breda, The Netherlands (2018). Excellence Doctoral Fellowship, for Outstanding PhD students, Council for Higher Education, Israel (2012-2014). Award for Excellence in PhD at School of Pharmacy, HUJI (2013). The Medicinal Chemistry Prize of the Israeli Chemical Society for graduate students, Weizmann Institute, Israel (2013). Merck Serono Innovation Cup Summer Camp, Frankfurt, Germany. Selected among 30 participants from 150 countries for this international research program (2013). Award for excellence in teaching at school of Pharmacy, HUJI (2010-2014). Also, he holds active membership in top professional national and international societies including ADA, PPSM, MCS-ICS, EFMC, AAPS, CRS, ICRS, ISR-GSF. As a faculty member, he takes an active part in several Technion’s and Department’s activities including Graduate committees. He also serves as a reviewer in leading journals among them Advanced Science, Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews (ADDR), Scientific Reports-Nature, Trends in Pharmacological Sciences – Cell Press, and Polymers for Advanced Technologies (PAT). He delivers scientific talks on a frequent basis in leading conferences and by himself, he had the experience of organizing international conferences. Moreover, he serves as a scientific grants reviewer and evaluator for the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Israel Science Foundations (ISF), as well as other national and international funding agencies. Also, he serves as a scientific consultant for varied national and international materials and pharmaceutical companies. His research interests span Functional and Medicinal Polymers, Antimicrobial and Antiviral Polymers, Bioactive Surfaces, Polymeric and Crystalline Systems for Cancer-Targeted Delivery, Crystalline Drug Delivery Systems, Biomaterials, Theranostics, Biodegradable Polymers, Smart Materials and Composites for Medical Needs, Drug Crystals for Long-term & Localized Delivery, Cells Encapsulation and “Live Drug Factories” for Chronic Diseases, Personalized Medicine, 3D Printing of Medical Implants, Functional Polymeric Nanoparticles, Controlled Drug Release, Crosslinked Polymers, Shape-Memory Polymers, Hydrogels, Tissue Engineering.

Currently, at The Technion I’m heading The Laboratory for Advanced Functional/Medicinal Polymers & Smart Drug Delivery Technologies

Our Passion & MISSION

Our lab passion is inventing new smart technologies and functionalized materials for diseases treatment and human benefits. Our vision focuses on two main research approaches; designing and engineering novel bioactive polymeric functionalized biomaterials and nanoparticles with desired and programmable properties, and developing smart drug delivery technologies.

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In the biomaterials research area, we design and fabricate functionalized biodegradable and non-degradable polymers for various medical and non-medical applications, owing to their ability to tailor properties by bearing new functional groups. Understanding the correlation between the derivatives structure and functionality, enables us to design valuable medical and therapeutic materials. In addition, within the drug delivery field, we concentrate in formulating and investigating the controlled release ability of drugs from various novel engineered materials such as crystalline drug formulations, which can provide long-term treatments or enhance the functionality of implants and cells based devices, by localized modulation of Immune response to them.

Awards