Achievements

Installation of Dr. Gregory Lanza

Gregory M. Lanza, MD, PhD was installed as the James R. Hornsby Family Professor of Biomedical Sciences on October 23, 2017.

He is a board-certified cardiologist in the Division of Cardiology in the Department of Medicine. He directs the Consortium for Translation Research in Advanced Imaging and Nanomedicine (C-TRAIN) and is a member of the Siteman Cancer Center. He is an established NIH principal investigator with over 260 peer-reviewed published manuscripts, 34 U.S. issued patents, and over 130 invited presentations since the turn of the century.

Dr. Lanza attained a BA from Colby College in Waterville, ME, and a PhD from the University of Georgia in 1981, with his dissertation focused on the genetic selection for aflatoxin resistance and susceptibility in poultry based on genotype by environmental interactions.

He joined Monsanto Company in St.Louis, as a senior research scientist in 1981 and advanced to the level of Research Manager, responsible for the preclinical biology program supporting the development of a 14-day parenteral, controlled-release product, which is marketed today as Posilac® by Elanco.
In 1988, he matriculated at Northwestern University Medical School and received an MD degree in 1992. At Northwestern, he developed and patented the first targeted ultrasound contrast agent in the lab of Dr.David McPherson.

Dr.Lanza completed his Internal Medicine residency and Cardiology fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He co-invented a perfluorocarbon (PFC) based, ligand-targeted contrast agent with Dr.Samuel Wickline, which was the first such agent demonstrated in vivo. This technology was expanded into a clinically tested multimodality imaging and therapeutic agent. Subsequently, Dr.Lanza and his colleagues invented a variety of nanotechnologies for molecular imaging and drug delivery.

Dr.Lanza was a scientific co-founder and CSO of Kereos, Inc., and recently founded Capella Imaging, LLC to develop a fibrin-specific probe for detecting or excluding thrombus in mechanical circulatory assist devices.