Niece - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_Cullis-Suzuki
Brother-in-law : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Suzuki (who married Tara Elizabeth Cullis )
Thomas David Madden, Ph.D. (born 1954) Co-founder/peer at Acuitas Therapeutics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pieter_Cullis
2023-09-18-wikipedia-org-pieter-cullis.pdf
Born : 1946 (age 76–77)
Nationality : Canadian
Alma mater : University of British Columbia[1]
Known for : Lipid nanoparticles
Awards : Officer of the Order of Canada Pieter Cullis, O.C. (Vancouver, British Columbia), For his contributions to the advancement of biomedical research and drug development, and for his mentorship of the next generation of scientists and entrepreneurs.
Scientific career :
Fields : Biophysics
Thesis : Electron paramagnetic resonance of phosphorus doped silicon in the intermediate impurity concentration range (1972)
Doctoral advisor : J.R. Marko
Website : www.liposomes.ca
Pieter Rutter Cullis OC OBC FRS is a Canadian physicist and biochemist known for his contributions to the field of lipid nanoparticles (LNP).[2] Lipid nanoparticles are essential to current mRNA vaccines as a delivery system. Prof. Cullis is best known for the development of ionizable cationic lipids. These lipids are able to complex with negatively charged nucleic acids at low pH (≈4.0) where they are positively charged because they have a pKa if approximately 6.4. They reduce or eliminate toxicity associated with cationic lipids at physiological pH of 7.4 because they adopt a net neutral charge. Finally, they enable endosomal escape because they again become positively charged in acidified endosomes and promote formation of non-bilayer structures by interaction with negatively charged lipids.[3] These properties are critical to the function of the mRNA vaccines and are rapidly enabling gene therapy in clinical settings.[4]
Cullis co-founded several companies to develop and commercialize LNP technology including [Acuitas Therapeutics], Integrated Nanotherapeutics and Precision NanoSystems.[5][6]
Cullis received a PhD in physics from the University of British Columbia and then moved to Oxford Universityto work as a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry working on NMR. During his time at Oxford, he started to work on lipids.[7] In the 1980s, he established his own laboratory at the University of British Columbia and started to create lipid bilayers. He subsequently founded Inex Pharmaceuticals, a company that focused research on ways to encapsulate drugs and nucleic acids within lipid particles.[7] He worked on the development of Patisiran, a drug that uses small interfering RNA delivered via lipid nanoparticles and was FDA approved in 2018. In collaboration with Toshifumi Yokota his research team is also developing LNPs for the treatment of muscular dystrophy.[8]
2022-10-25-youtube-canada-gairdner-awards-pieter-cullis-manitoba-lecture-720p.mp4
2022-10-25-youtube-canada-gairdner-awards-pieter-cullis-manitoba-lecture-720p-hits-cover-1080p.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZYa7SGz87U
2022 University of Manitoba Gairdner Lecture by Dr. Pieter Cullis
CanadaGairdnerAwards
671 views Oct 25, 2022
Dr. Pieter Cullis, 2022 Canada Gairdner International Award winner presented at the University of Manitoba for the Annual Gairdner Lecture - Science and Serendipity: Lipid Nanoparticles that Enable COVID-19 MRNA Vaccines.