Dr. Dean Ho is currently a Professor in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine, the Division of Advanced Prosthodontics, and Co-Director of the Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology at the UCLA School of Dentistry. Prior to coming to UCLA, Dr. Ho was an Associate Professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in the Robert R. McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern University. Dr. Ho joined the school as a faculty member in July 2012.

Our group is focused on the development of nanomaterials for enhanced therapeutic delivery and imaging and was among the first to demonstrate the application of nanodiamonds towards chemotherapeutic release. Our expertise pertains to nanomaterial-drug synthesis/characterization, as well as efficacy and biocompatibility testing. Our carbon-based platforms have been validated in vitro and in vivo, with observed increases in therapeutic efficacy and safety. I received my Ph.D. degree in Biomedical Engineering from UCLA in 2005. Following my term as a Research Associate at the California Institute of Technology, I joined the faculty of Northwestern University as Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering in 2006, and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2010. I am currently a Professor at the UCLA School of Dentistry in the Division of Oral Biology and Medicine, Co-Director of the Weintraub Center for Reconstructive Biotechnology, and Professor of Bioengineering. I am a recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, Wallace H. Coulter Foundation Translational Research Award, and V Foundation for Cancer Research Scholars Award. In 2010, I was an invited attendee of the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Symposium. In 2012 I was named the Inaugural Fellow of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening Endowed Fellowship.