William H. Velander
Dr. Velander is also a faculty member in
Dr. Velander has been the Chair of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2003. He was awarded the D.R. Voelte and N.A. Keegan Endowed Chair in Engineering in 2004. He is a member of several esteemed organizations such as the American Institute of Medical and Bioengineering and American Chemical Society.
Working on safer, abundant sources of plasma-derived medicines since 1987, when disease contamination of blood supply medicines by HIV, Hepatitis B and C reached a worldwide epidemic.
To help reduce that risk, Dr. Velander has joined with the American Red Cross Holland Laboratory to pioneer genetically engineered versions of human anticoagulant Protein C, human anti-hemophiliac factors VIII and IX, and fibrinogen (for fibrin glue precursor for hemostatic devices, tissue reconstruction and site specific drug delivery) from the milk of transgenic livestock. His group also helped in pioneering efforts to humanize pig tissue to provide stopgap alternatives for organ transplants.
Dr. Velander's work on transgenic animals is known worldwide in scientific literature such as the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and Nature Biotechnology as well as through international media including CNN's "Future Watch," RAI's "Quark," The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The London Daily Telegraph, the cover story of October 1999 National Geographic, May 1998 Discover, July 1998 Smithsonian and the January 1997 issue of Scientific American.
His work with hemophilia factors was featured on "21st Century Medicine: Genetic Promises" on the Discovery Health Channel in November 2001 and also in the exhibit 'Engineering Genes' at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.
Dr. Velander is an elected fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Bioengineering. He was instrumental in the formulation of federal regulatory guidelines for human therapeutics derived from transgenic animals through his consultancy with the USFDA.
He is a co-inventor of several US patents concerning the production of recombinant proteins of haemostasis.
Dr. Velander is currently the principal investigator of a $10M, 5-year National Institutes for Health (NIH) grant awarded to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in September 2005 for research on recombinant hemophilia factors.
He is also the principal investigator of a $5M grant from the US ARMY for the production of a fibrinogen hemostatic bandage.
