Jason H. Sakamoto, Ph.D.

Co-Chair, Assistant Member
Department of Nanomedicine
Houston Methodist Research Institute

Dr. Sakamoto is a faculty member of The Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI) located in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, Texas.  There he leads research efforts developing novel nano-therapeutic drug delivery systems and innovative regenerative medicine and tissue engineering projects. He is a co-inventor of the Multistage™ nanoporous silicon nanovector delivery system technology that is currently being commercialized by Leonardo BioSystems INC. Dr. Sakamoto serves as a Co-Chair of the Department of Nanomedicine at the HMRI and manages two NCI Centers of Excellence. He also serves as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the Alliance for NanoHealth. The Alliance is a consortium of eight institutions of the Greater Houston Texas Region. The mission of the Alliance is to collectively bridge the disciplines to develop nanotechnology-based solutions to unresolved problems in medicine and to facilitate the clinical translation of these new technologies that are academic in origin. Dr. Sakamoto also serves as a consultant for the Arrowhead Research Corporation in Pasadena, California, assigned to the technology and business development of Leonardo Biosystems INC.

Prior to his services in Houston, Dr. Sakamoto completed his undergraduate degree in Material Science Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley under the mentorship of Dr. Mauro Ferrari. After graduating, he entered the medical device industry and was employed as coronary and peripheral stent manufacturing and process engineer at the Guidant Corporation in Santa Clara, California. During these years at Guidant, he played a significant role in the regulatory approval process of three medical devices and was responsible for the GMP production of coronary/peripheral stents for over a year. After Guidant, he rejoined Dr. Ferrari's research team and received his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from The Ohio State University. Upon completion of his Ph.D., Dr. Sakamoto remained as a post-doctoral researcher in Dr. Ferrari's nanomedicine research group, while working as a business development consultant for several biotech start-ups. He has written several publications on nanomedicine including peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and is an inventor on several pending U.S. patent applications.