Kenneth Suslick

Scientific Advisor, US at Specific Diagnostics

Professor Suslick received his B.S. from the California Institute of Technology in 1974, his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1978, and came to the University of Illinois immediately thereafter. He has published more than 350 papers, edited four books, and holds 26 patents.

In addition to his academic research, Professor Suslick has had significant entrepreneurial experience. He was the lead consultant for Molecular Biosystems Inc. and part of the team that commercialized the first echo contrast agent for medical sonography, Albunex™, which became Optison™ by GE Healthcare. In addition, he was the founding consultant for VivoRx Pharmaceuticals and helped invent and commercialize Abraxane™, albumin microspheres with a paclitaxel core, which is the predominant current delivery system for taxol chemotherapy for breast cancer; VivoRx became Abraxis Bioscience, which was acquired by Celgene for $2.9 billion. He then co-founded ChemSensing, which began the commercialization of the Suslick group's optoelectronic nose technology and its successor, iSense Systems LLC in Mountain View, for the biomedical applications of this unique sensor technology.