Draft:Jeremiah Gassensmith

Jeremiah J. Gassensmith (born February 22, 1981) is an American chemist. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Dallas in the Department of Chemistry, with an affiliate appointment in the Department of Bioengineering at UT Dallas as well as the Advanced Imaging Research Center at UT Southwestern. In his independent career, Gassensmith uses chemistry to develop biomaterial-based tools for thermally stable vaccines, photothermal therapy agents for cancer treatment, and contrast agents for MRI imaging. For his contribution to research, he has been elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC).

Early life and education
Gassensmith was born and raised in Indianapolis. In 1999, he secured the first place in the United States National Chemistry Olympiad at the state level in Indiana. Gassensmith completed his Bachelor of Science with Honors in Chemistry in 2003 at Indiana University Bloomington, where he pursued undergraduate research under the direction of Prof. Joseph Gajewski. He worked at Eli Lilly Drug Discovery and Research for a brief period of time before starting his graduate studies. Gassensmith gained his PhD from University of Notre Dame under the tutelage of Prof. Bradley Smith in 2009.

Career
After his PhD, Gassensmith moved to Northwestern University to pursue postdoctoral research under Nobel laureate Fraser Stoddart from 2009 to 2013. While at Northwestern, he worked on developing porous carbohydrate-based frameworks, as well as their utilization in detection and sequestration of gases. In 2013, Gassensmith joined the faculty of University of Texas at Dallas as a tenure-track assistant professor.

Gassensmith’s research focuses on developing a variety of biomaterial-based tools for biomedical applications. He has previously received funding from the National Science Foundation, Welch Foundation, Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund, United States Drug Enforcement Agency, and other private agencies.

Gassensmith’s research on utilizing metal-organic frameworks to stabilize vaccines at room temperature has received attention in both scientific and non-scientific news outlets. In 2021, his group published a paper that demonstrated the formation of ultra-stable liposomes can be distributed via USPS mail without degradation, eliminating the need for freezers in shipping. Another publication in 2021 demonstrated that use of the same coating on whole cell E. coli can be used to develop a urinary tract infection vaccine. In 2023, Gassensmith and group published their work on a device named the “MOF-Jet”, which uses pressurized air to achieve needle-less vaccine delivery, and after the press release of this work by the American Chemical Society, it received media coverage both inside the US and internationally.

Gassensmith currently serves as the Associate Editor of Chemical Engineering Journal, and is on the advisory board of Chemical Science. He has also been appointed a scientific advisor for the Switzerland-based company NovoMOF AG.

Outside of biomaterials, Gassensmith also harbors an interest in barbeque. He developed and currently teaches the course “The Science and History of BBQ”, offered by the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College in the University of Texas at Dallas.