Jung Soo Suk, PhD

Education

• 2001 | B.Eng., Chemical Engineering, Korea University, Seoul, Republic of Korea (South)
• 2005 | M.S.E., Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
• 2011 | P.h.D., Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD

Post-Graduate

• 2011-2013 | Postdoctoral Fellow, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine

Dr. Suk is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Medicine Institute for Neuroscience Discovery (UM-MIND) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He also holds adjunct appointments in the Department of Neurosurgery and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Suk received his undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering at Korea University and completed his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Dr. Suk’s primary research interest lies in the understanding of the biological barriers to systemic and localized therapeutic delivery (e.g., blood-brain barrier, airway mucus, extracellular matrix, vitreous, etc.) and development and preclinical validation of nanotechnology-based platforms capable of overcoming those barriers. Specifically, his research group develops nanocarriers based on synthetic (e.g., polymer, lipid, peptide) or naturally derived (e.g., protein, virus, extracellular vesicle) materials that provide safe, efficient, and/or targeted delivery of a wide array of therapeutic payloads, spanning small molecule drugs, nucleic acid-medicines, and proteins, for treating debilitating diseases, including cancers, genetic disorders and beyond.

Based on the comprehensive understanding of material science, biophysics, engineering, and medical biology, Dr. Suk and team have developed a variety of therapeutic delivery platforms and strategies that overcome challenging biological barriers and provide efficient delivery of therapeutic payloads to the target tissues, including brain, lung, and eyes. Dr. Suk has recently expanded his research horizon to cancer immunotherapy, particularly focusing on the approaches to curb the mechanisms by which malignant cancers resist anti-cancer immune responses.

Dr. Suk’s work has been published in numerous peer-reviewed scientific journals and has resulted in several patent filings for potential clinical translation and commercialization. Dr. Suk’s research to date has been funded by TEDCO (Maryland Entrepreneur Funding and Investments), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Focus Ultrasound Foundation, W.W. Smith Charitable Trust, and primarily by the National Institute of Health.

biological barriers to systemic and localized therapeutic delivery (e.g., blood-brain barrier, airway mucus, extracellular matrix, vitreous, etc.) and development and preclinical validation of nanotechnology-based platforms capable of overcoming those barriers; cancer immunotherapy

1. Kwak G, Grewal A, Mess G, Li H, Poulopoulos A, Woodworth GF, Eberhart CG, Ko H, Manbachi A, Caplan J, Price RJ, Tyler B, D, Suk JS. Brain nucleic acid delivery and genome editing via focus ultrasound-mediated blood-brain barrier opening and long-circulating nanoparticles. ACS Nano. 2024; 18(35):24139-24153.
2. Kong B, Kim Y, Kim EH, Suk JS*, Yang Y*. mRNA: A promising platform for cancer immunotherapy. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2023;199:114993.
3. Kwak G, Gololobova O, Sharma N, Caine C, Mazur M, Mulka K, West NE, Solomon GM, Cutting GR, Witwer KW, Rowe SM, Paulaitis M, Aslanidi G, Suk JS. Extracellular vesicles enhance pulmonary transduction of stably associated adeno-associated virus following intratracheal administration. J Extracell Vesicles. 2023;12(6):e12324.
4. Negron K, Kwak G, Wang H, Li H, Huang Y-T, Chen S-W, Tyler B, Eberhart CG, Hanes J, Suk JS. A highly translatable dual-arm local delivery strategy to achieve widespread therapeutic coverage in healthy and tumor-bearing brain tissues. 2023; 8(2):e10401.
5. Andrade da Silva LH, Vieira JB, Cabral MR, Antunes MA, Lee D, Cruz FF, Hanes J, Rocco PRM*, Morales MM*, Suk JS*. Development of nintedanib nanosuspension for inhaled treatment of experimental silicosis. Bioeng Transl Med. 2022;8(2):e10401.
6. Kim N, Kwak G, Rodriguez J, Livraghi-Butrico A, Zuo X, Simon V, Han E, Shenoy S, Pandey N, Mazur M, Birket SE, Kim A, Rowe SM, Boucher RC, Hanes J, Suk JS. Inhaled gene therapy of preclinical muco-obstructive lung diseases by nanoparticles capable of breaching the airway mucus barrier. 2022;77(8):812-820.
7. Chen D, Liu S, Chen D, Liu J, Wu J, Wang H, Su Y, Kwak G, Zuo X, Rao D, Cui H, Shu C*, Suk JS*. Two-pronged pulmonary gene delivery strategy: a surface-modified fullerene nanoparticle and a hypotonic vehicle. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2021;60(28):15225-15229.
8. da Silva AL, de Oliveira GP, Kim N, Cruz FF, Kitoko JZ, Blanco NG, Martini SV, Hanes J, Rocco PRM, Suk JS*, Morales MM*. Nanoparticle-based thymulin gene therapy therapeutically reverses key pathology of experimental allergic asthma. Sci Adv. 2020;6(24):eaay7973.
9. Negron N, Zhu C, Chen S-W, Shahab, S, Raabe EH, Eberhart CG, Hanes J, Suk JS. Non-adhesive and highly-stable biodegradable nanoparticles that provide widespread and safe transgene expression in orthotopic brain tumors. Drug Deliv Transl Res. 2020;10(3):572-581.