Hemachand Tummala
Department Head/Professor
Biography
Dr. Hemachand Tummala is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences. He has over 20 years of experience in disease biology, immunology, and drug/vaccine delivery. His research interests are in designing various vaccine and drug delivery platforms for cancer, infectious diseases, and intestinal health. He has over 50 publications and presentations, 1 book chapter, six pending patent applications. Dr. Tummala’s laboratory works at the interface of chemistry, drug delivery, and biology and focuses on discovering functional biomaterials to overcome biological or pharmacokinetic barriers for the translation of novel therapeutics to clinical application. The laboratory has discovered a novel bioactive plant-based polymer (TLR-4 agonist), inulin acetate. Using inulin acetate as a material, the team have engineered a “pathogen mimicking vaccine delivery system” (PMVDS). For its innovative approach, PMVDS technology won the national award “2013-American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists- Innovation in Biotechnology”. PMVDS technology is licensed to Medgene Labs., Brookings, SD for commercialization. The research group had also engineered a polymer-based TLR-4 antagonist (Ora-Curcumin) to inhibit inflammation at the colon and other tissue. Ora-Curcumin is an anti-inflammatory polymer that could be delivered to the lumen of the colon without exposing the systemic circulation or delivered to systemic circulation. A US patent has been issued on this technology. It is currently licensed to the Academic Technology Ventures (Turmeric Ultra) for commercialization. Dr. Tummala teaches pharmaceutics/compounding pharmacy courses to professional pharmacy students and graduate students. He has been a research mentor for 17 undergraduate students, five graduate students, and several post-Doctoral fellows. He has been serving in the editorial board of several journals and serving as a reviewer for various national and international funding agencies. He is the recipient of 2013-Distinguished Researcher, 2014-Student Association Teacher of the Year, 2014-Faculty Scholar, 2015- Excellence in Teaching, 2017-Excellence in Research, Scholarly Activity, 2018 Outstanding Researcher awards from the College of Pharmacy, SDSU, and 2019- F. O. Butler Award for Excellence in Research, SDSU.
