Sean Michael Sullivan, Ph.D. - Scientific Director
Dr. Sean Sullivan joined Let There Be Hope in 2000 as Research Director, having worked with Dr. Michael J. Scolaro on methods for inhibiting HIV-1 proliferation in infected cells. His research expertise is in the field of targeted drug delivery for HIV and cancer. After obtaining his B.S. in Chemistry from Maryville College in Tennessee, Dr. Sullivan earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology, 1985-87. After many years in the biotechnology industry, Dr. Sullivan accepted a position as Associate Professor of Pharmaceutics in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
Upon leaving Cal-Tech, Sullivan conducted research on the “Development of Anti-HIV Therapeutics” with an NIH/NIAID grant, 1987-90, in conjunction with the City of Hope in Duarte, CA, and MicroProbe, Inc., in Bothell, Washington. In 1989-90 he researched the “Development of Antibody Targeted Chemotherapeutic Immunoliposomes” with an NIH SBIR grant. With Drs. T. Cech and Chip Schooley of the University of Colorado at Boulder, he utilized NIH-NIAID monies to examine “Anti-HIV Ribozyme Development” in 1993-96. Another NIH SBIR grant supported study of “Targeted Non-Viral Gene Delivery” in 1997.
During his fifteen years in the biotechnology industry, Sullivan developed liposome and polymer-based systems for the delivery of antiviral and anticancer drugs targeted specifically to diseased tissue. While at Vestar, Inc. (presently a division of Gilead Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), he formulated a chemical modification of a liposome surface that yielded specific delivery of liposome-encapsulated antisense DNA to lymphocytes and monocytes resulting in inhibition of HIV proliferation. In collaboration with Drs. Michael Scolaro and Robert Gieseler, along with Gieseler’s colleagues at the University of Gottingen, Dr. Sullivan published “Inhibition of HIV-1 Proliferation by Liposome-Encapsulated Sense DNA to the 5’ tat Splice Acceptor Site (Antisense Research and Development 1992; 2:187-197).
Dr. Sullivan left Vestar to pursue the development of ribozyme technology. Ribozymes are synthetic or naturally transcribed enzyme RNA molecules that can bind to RNAs encoding proteins and cleave them enzymatically. While at Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Inc., he developed a topical polymer formulation for treatment of herpes simplex virus type 1 of the eye. At Somatix Therapy Corporation (currently CellGenesys, Inc.) and GeneMedicine (currently Valentis), Dr. Sullivan developed targeted non-viral gene delivery systems to address tumor vasculature. His subsequent research at the University of Florida has continued this emphasis on targeted gene and drug delivery systems.
He has published extensively, has generated numerous patents, has given seminars throughout the U.S. and Europe, and is on the editorial boards for Pharmaceutical Research and Human Gene Therapy. In addition, Dr. Sullivan is a reviewer for the National Institutes of Health.
