Ravi Kane
Professor
Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair
Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology
Ravi Kane is the Garry Betty/V Foundation Chair and GRA Eminent Scholar in Cancer Nanotechnology. He received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993. Also, he received an M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT, working with Bob Cohen and Bob Silbey. After postdoctoral research with George Whitesides in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, he joined Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) as an assistant professor in 2001. He was promoted to associate professor in 2006, to full professor in 2007, and to the P.K. Lashmet Professor in 2008. He served as the head of RPI’s Howard P. Isermann Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering before moving to Georgia Tech in 2015. Prof. Kane has graduated 27 Ph.D students and contributed to over 130 scientific publications.
404-385-4608
Office Location:
EBB 5019
Professor Kane's groupconducts research at the interface of biotechnology and nanotechnology.The group is designing nanoscale polyvalent therapeutics and working on the molecular engineering of biosurfaces and nanostructures. A major focus of the group's research involves the design of polyvalent ligands, i.e., nanoscale scaffolds presenting multiple copies of selected biomolecules.The Kane group has made seminal contributions to a fundamental understanding of polyvalent recognition and has designed polyvalent inhibitors that are effectivein vivo.Currently, the group is designing polyvalent molecules that control stem cell fate as well as polyvalent inhibitors of pathogens such as HIV and influenza.The group is also designing nanoscale scaffolds for antigen presentation as part of novel strategies for designing vaccines.The approach could lead to the development of "universal" influenza vaccines as well as effective vaccines targeting RSV and malaria.Other interests of the group involve optogenetics — the development and application of methods that use light to control cell function — as well as the design of enzymes and nanocomposites that target antibiotic-resistant pathogens.
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