Todd D. Giorgio has been named a 2012 Distinguished Bioengineering Alumnus by the department of bioengineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas. Giorgio earned a doctorate in chemical engineering from Rice in 1986.
The department’s alumni awards honor excellence in research, teaching, service or significant contributions to academia, society or the bioengineering industry.
Giorgio was named chair of the department of biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt in 2008. He first joined the Vanderbilt faculty as an assistant professor of chemical engineering in 1987.
In addition to his primary appointment, Giorgio also serves as professor of chemical engineering and professor of interdisciplinary materials science. He is on the advisory committee of the Vanderbilt Institute for Nanoscale Science and Engineering.
Giorgio’s research interests include protease-resonsive biosensors for cancer and atherosclerosis imaging, theranostic systems for combined imaging and drug delivery, gene and siRNA delivery in vitro and in vivo, phage display for discovery of functional peptides for drug and gene delivery applications. He leads the Laboratory for Bionanotechnology and Nanomedicine in the School of Engineering.
He is also a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn., where he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1982.
Giorgio is a Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Fellow and a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He has won an outstanding teaching award from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering and four awards for the best research paper from the Vanderbilt Engineering Research Council.