jpokorski

Professor Pokorski began his scientific career by earning his B.S. in Biochemistry from UCLA in 2002. While at UCLA, he worked in private industry designing and testing biomedical devices that are currently in use around the world. In 2007, Dr. Pokorski received his doctoral degree in organic chemistry from Northwestern University, where he designed, synthesized, and tested diverse peptidomimetic systems for use in medical diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Pokorski then moved to The Scripps Research Institute, where he used both chemical and genetic engineering of viral nanoparticles to synthesize novel drug delivery systems. During postdoctoral training, Dr. Pokorski first earned an NIH Ruth Kirschstein fellowship and later secured an NIH Pathway to Independence Award.

Dr. Pokorski joined the faculty at Case Western Reserve university in the department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering in 2012 and moved to the Nanoengineering department at UCSD in 2018. Pokorski’s laboratory works to bridge chemical synthesis, molecular biology, and materials science to make new materials for biomedical applications. The Pokorski lab is particularly interested in marrying biological and polymer science to generate biocomposite materials for medicine and the environment. Research in the Pokorski lab is funded through grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, Department of Energy and the American Chemical Society.

October 2023