Pieter Cullis

Pieter Rutter Cullis OC is a Canadian physicist and biochemist known for his contributions to the field of lipid nanoparticles.[2] Lipid nanoparticles are essential to current mRNA vaccines as a delivery system.

Pieter Cullis

OC
Born1946 (age 75–76)
NationalityCanadian
Alma materUniversity of British Columbia[1]
Known forLipid nanoparticles
AwardsOfficer 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
FieldsBiophysics
ThesisElectron paramagnetic resonance of phosphorus doped silicon in the intermediate impurity concentration range (1972)
Doctoral advisorJ.R. Marko
Websitewww.liposomes.ca

Research

Cullis received a PhD in physics from the University of British Columbia and then moved to Oxford University to work as a postdoctoral fellow in biochemistry working on NMR. During his time at Oxford, he started to work on lipids.[3] In the 1980s, he established his own laboratory at the University of British Columbia and started to create lipid bilayers and founded Inex Pharmaceuticals, where they researched ways to encapsulate drugs and nucleic acids within the lipid particles.[3] He worked on the development of Patisiran, a drug that uses small interfering RNA delivered via lipid nanoparticles and was FDA approved in 2018.

Awards & Honours
  • Ayerst Award by the Canadian Biochemical Society in 1986[4]
  • B.C. Science Council Gold Medal for Health Sciences in 1991
  • Alec D. Bangham Award for contributions to liposome science and technology in 2000
  • B.C. Biotechnology Association award for Innovation and Achievement in 2002
  • elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2004
  • Barre award for contributions to Pharmaceutical Sciences by the University of Montreal in 2005
  • UBC Alumni Award for Research in Science and Medicine in 2005
  • Prix Galien Canada award in 2011
  • Bill and Marilyn Webber Lifetime Achievement Award
  • Prince Mahidol Award in 2021[5]
  • Officer of the Order of Canada in 2022[6]
  • VinFuture Prize Grand Prize in 2022[7]
  • Camurus Lipid Research Foundation 2021 and 2020 Lipid Science Prize in 2022
  • Canada Gairdner International Award in 2022[8]
  • Governor General’s Innovation Award in 2022[9]

References
  1. "Pieter Cullis | Life Sciences Institute".
  2. "Meet the Canadian scientist who paved the way for groundbreaking mRNA COVID vaccines | CBC Radio". Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  3. Horejs, Christine (December 2021). "From lipids to lipid nanoparticles to mRNA vaccines | Nature Reviews Materials". Nature Reviews Materials. 6 (12): 1075–1076. doi:10.1038/s41578-021-00379-9. PMC 8454296. PMID 34567796.
  4. "NanoMedicines Research Group". Retrieved 2021-12-09.
  5. "Dr. Pieter Cullis awarded Prince Mahidol Award for ground-breaking work on lipid nanoparticles". 17 November 2021.
  6. "Governor General announces 135 new appointments to the Order of Canada" (Press release). Governor General of Canada. December 29, 2021.
  7. "Professor Pieter R. Cullis". VinFuture Prize Foundation. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
  8. "2022 Canada Gairdner Awards Recognize World-Renowned Scientists For Transformative Contributions To Research Impacting Human Health". Gairdner Foundation. 2022-04-05. Retrieved 2022-04-05.
  9. "2022 Archives". Governor General’s Innovation Awards. Retrieved 2022-04-27.
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