DeSimone is a member of the
National Academy of Medicine (2014),
National Academy of Sciences (2012), and the
National Academy of Engineering (2005). He is also a member of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2005). In the 1990s, at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he developed an environmentally friendly manufacturing process that relies on
supercritical carbon dioxide instead of water and bio-persistent
surfactants for the creation of
fluoropolymers or
high-performance plastics, such as
Teflon. In 2002 DeSimone, along with Richard Stack, a cardiologist at
Duke University, co-founded Bioabsorbable Vascular Solutions (BVS) to commercialize a fully bioabsorbable, drug-eluting
stent for the treatment of
coronary artery disease. As a professor at the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and
North Carolina State University, DeSimone and members of his academic laboratory also developed the nanoparticle fabrication technology, PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-Wetting Templates), leading DeSimone and students to co-found the company Liquidia Technologies in 2004. Liquidia develops PRINT particle-based medical treatments and became a publicly traded company in 2018. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the PRINT technology also became a foundation for the
Carolina Center for Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence funded by the
National Cancer Institute. In 2015, DeSimone and colleagues published a paper in
Science Magazine on their invention of a rapid polymer 3D printing technology,
Continuous Liquid Interface Production (CLIP). The company,
Carbon, which DeSimone co-founded, now develops printers with the CLIP technology. The printers are used to make end-use parts and products in several industries, including by the companies
Adidas, Resolution Medical, and
Ford. Recently, DeSimone has also been involved in the digital fabrication space using computational design to speed up the former method.
Awards and honors DeSimone is the recipient of the 2002
John Scott Award presented by the Board of Directors of City Trusts, Philadelphia, given to "the most deserving" men and women whose inventions have contributed in some outstanding way to the "comfort, welfare and happiness" of mankind; the 2008
Lemelson–MIT Prize, the 2009
North Carolina Award; the 2009
NIH Director's Pioneer Award; the 2014
Dickson Prize in Science; and the 2014
IRI Medal. DeSimone was awarded the
National Medal of Technology and Innovation, the highest honor in the U.S. for achievements related to technological progress, by
President Barack Obama at the White House in May 2016. In 2017, Dr. DeSimone received the 22nd Annual
Heinz Award in Technology, the Economy, and Employment. In 2019, DeSimone received the
Wilhelm Exner Medal in
Polymer Manufacturing. Also in 2019, he was named the U.S.
Entrepreneur Of The Year, National Overall Award winner by
Ernst & Young. For the years 2019-2020 he was awarded the
Harvey Prize of the Technion in Israel. In 2021, he received the
Charles Goodyear Medal from the
American Chemical Society Rubber Division. ==References==