DeAngelis Honored by Society for Glycobiology

University of Oklahoma College of Medicine researcher Paul L. DeAngelis, Ph.D., has been awarded the President’s Innovator Award by the Society for Glycobiology.

DeAngelis, a President’s Associates Presidential Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Physiology, has dedicated his career to glycobiology, a field that explores the structures and functions of sugars. He has a particular focus on the biology of glycosaminoglycans, which are important complex carbohydrates that participate in many biological processes and are highly relevant for the discovery of new drugs.

DeAngelis has written 94 research publications and 14 review articles and book chapters, and his work has been issued 48 U.S. patents and 99 foreign patents. His innovative technologies have been licensed to multiple pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including four Oklahoma City-based companies that he founded and for which he has served as chief scientist and director. They are Caisson Biotech, LLC, Hyalose, LLC, Heparinex, LLC, and Choncept, LLC.

Among his notable achievements, his research on heparosan (HEP, a naturally occurring sugar polymer) led to the development of the HEPtune drug delivery platform. The technology has been used to link HEP to biologic drugs such as insulin to extend their duration of action in the body, ultimately improving drug delivery. The same technology has been used to enhance coagulation proteins for their role in blood clotting, as well as growth factors, which are natural molecules that control cell division, growth and repair. DeAngelis also developed methods for synthesizing heparin, a naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan that is one of the most frequently used drugs in hospitals. Synthetic heparin provides several advantages over biological sources of the drug.

In addition to his work with HEP and heparin, he has had a long-standing interest in the biology and biosynthesis of hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan found throughout the body’s connective tissue. His research in this area has been leveraged to develop technologies used in the production of biomaterials, drugs and other substances involved in chemical reactions.

DeAngelis has received numerous awards during his career. He was elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors in 2013 and received the Oklahoma Bioscience Association Innovation Award in 2014. He also received the Rooster Award for scientific achievement for synthetic hyaluronic acid in 2007 from the International Society for Hyaluronan Sciences.

His career with the OU College of Medicine began in 1994. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University, followed by his doctorate from the University of California Irvine. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Texas in Galveston.