Alexander J. Donovan, Ph.D.

Before joining L&A, Alex worked as a Senior Researcher at a large, global construction materials manufacturer where he formulated setting-type joint compounds and textures for commercial manufacturing. During his postdoctoral research at the same company, he performed fundamental and applied research in construction materials and surfaces products employing surface chemistry, interfacial phenomena, and rheology.

Alex earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His cross-disciplinary thesis research was directed to a threshold-switchable procoagulant nanotherapy incorporating a patented polymeric nanoparticle encapsulated in a phospholipid vesicle that mimics platelet dense granules, an organelle central to hemostasis and the wound healing process.

Alex was a double major at University of Chicago where he received his Bachelor of Science in Biological Chemistry and a Bachelor of Arts in Chemistry. He performed undergraduate research pertaining to the total synthesis of the model protein bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) and a D-amino acid diastereomer employing Boc chemistry solid-phase peptide synthesis, native chemical ligation, and HSQC NMR fingerprinting.

Alex is an inventor and co-inventor on several U.S. patents related to surface chemistry and interfacial phenomena techniques. He has published numerous scientific articles in peer-reviewed publications and two invited book chapters on multiphase microfluidics and oral nanoformulations. He also participated as the chief entrepreneurial and technology lead for a team in the University of Chicago Booth’s New Venture Challenge (NVC) focused on reformulating existing poorly bioavailable, small-molecule biopharmaceutics class IV compounds following the FDA’s streamlined 505(b)(2) regulatory pathway.