Kanneboyina Nagaraju

Kanneboyina Nagaraju is the Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the State University of New York (SUNY), Binghamton. He holds the prestigious title of SUNY Distinguished Professor, the highest faculty rank awarded by the State University of New York system.

Nagaraju is a renowned medical scientist and immunologist, known for developing the MHC Class I transgenic mouse model for autoimmune myositis. He played a pivotal role in the identification and development of Vamorolone (AGAMREE), a potent anti-inflammatory and membrane-stabilizing dissociated glucocorticoid with fewer side effects, in collaboration with Eric Hoffman and John McCall. Vamorolone has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, the European Medicines Agency, and the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency for the treatment of children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. Additionally, Nagaraju has led global initiatives to improve the rigor and reproducibility of preclinical drug trials and phenotyping in neuromuscular disease models.

Education and career
Nagaraju began his academic journey with veterinary training at Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University and the Indian Veterinary Research Institute. He then pursued a PhD in Immunology at the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences and completed postdoctoral training in immunology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). His academic career includes tenure-track and tenured positions at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Children's National Medical Center, and George Washington University School of Medicine. At SUNY Binghamton, he is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Founding Chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He has also served as Vice Dean of the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.

Beyond academia, Nagaraju is an accomplished entrepreneur, co-founding ReveraGen BioPharma, which develops Vamorolone for inflammatory diseases, including muscular dystrophy, and AGADA BioSciences, which provides preclinical and clinical trial support services for therapeutics targeting rare neuromuscular diseases.