In the world of biomedical innovation, few stories embody the spirit of perseverance, intuition, and collaboration quite like that of Dr. Kannan Rangaramanujam, the Arnall Patz Distinguished Professor of Ophthalmology and Co-Director of the Center for Nanomedicine at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
A chemical engineer by training with a PhD from Caltech, Dr. Kannan’s journey from a rural village in South India to leading groundbreaking nanomedicine research at one of the world’s foremost medical institutions is an American dream story shaped by resilience, destiny, and a deep sense of purpose. His pioneering work in dendrimer-based drug delivery platforms has the potential to revolutionize treatments for ocular, neurological, and inflammatory diseases, making medicine safer, more accessible, and more effective for millions worldwide.
In this inspiring conversation, Dr. Kannan reflects on his unconventional path, the power of intuition in science, and how passion, humility, and perseverance can drive innovation with profound social impact.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory and how you grew up?
I grew up in a lower middle-class family, in a rural South Indian village, and my journey involved many ‘against all odds’ moments, based on health and educational circumstances. I studied in rural Tamil medium schools. The US and its principle of ‘attracting excellence from any corner of the world’ brought me to the US in 1987 for graduate school in Chemical Engineering. I quickly imbibed ‘sports excellence’ in the US, and ‘innovative culture of high risk-high reward approach’. After finishing my PhD at Caltech, postdoc at U Minnesota and brief stint at 3M, I joined Wayne State University faculty. I was always fascinated by what is beyond ‘conventional knowledge’ and always tried to imagine thought experiments that could overcome years ‘process’, This led me to an exciting decade of unique experiences and ‘climbing mountains’ that led to solutions for decades-old problems. Against all odds and advice, I decided to collaborate with my physician wife at an early stage that provided major dividends. In many ways, we both bet our professional careers and personal lives on our scientific intuition and endeavor. Many exceptional students, postdocs and colleagues enabled this exciting journey. In many ways (on a much smaller scale), the evolution of our scientific story has many parallels to Google. They could have been bought for $1M and $1B by Yahoo, and others. That did not happen. In many ways, the clinical value of our science is still being discovered by others, despite solid validation!
I am an engineer by training but am currently a professor of ophthalmology and co-direct the Center for Nanomedicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. An interesting fact about our research journey is ‘destiny’, which also brought my wife (Sujatha Kannan, Professor of pediatric critical care medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine), and my son (Gokul Kannan, PhD student, Stanford University) to this discovery and translation process over 25 years! This is a story of ‘destiny’, scientific intuition, and thinking ‘outside the box’ in a stunning fashion.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I was a somewhat successful assistant professor in chemical engineering at Wayne State University in Michigan. At that time (in the early 2000s), our family used to attend the Chinmaya Mission Saturday school to learn about Hindu Philosophy, meditation etc. I was teaching 9th and 10th graders a textbook called ‘Self-Unfoldment’. At the end of each chapter, the students and teachers have to do the ‘homework questions’. One of the questions was, “what would you do with your life, if your basic needs are taken care of?” This question had a transformative impact on my life, including scientifically. I was working on polymer physics and nanoscale effects, which had fundamental importance, but did not impact humanity directly. My six-year-old son (Gokul) asked me what I was doing for research. When I explained, he asked back, unimpressed, “How does that change the world?” I was rather surprised and disappointed that I could not impress this six-year-old. I realized that I was being very conservative in my research and not taking on big, risky problems that would have a massive impact. I decided to bet on ‘approaches that are the exact opposite of conventional wisdom’ and bring our intuition to address long-standing problems in healthcare and intractable neurological disorders. Remarkable series of improbable results were produced – it took the field and investors a long time to realize the potential of it. We kept going without worrying about fame or credit. With the stunningly positive results in clinical trials, the tide is turning.
We also have a very interesting ‘back’ story related to an insight that was provided by Gokul as a small kid, that moved us further along this path.
None of us is able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful to for helping you get to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
First, I am highly grateful to my first two collaborators Dr. Raymond Iezzi (currently at Mayo Clinic) and Sujatha Kannan. Dr. Iezzi was a student in my ‘drug delivery class’. Both of them were clinician researchers and were intrigued by my unproven ideas but were ready to collaborate on this project. Sujatha continued for 20 more years!
Dr. Roberto Romero (Perinatology Research Branch, NIH) recognized the potential of this audacious idea, partnered with us, and catalyzed it. Dr. Justin Hanes (Johns Hopkins) also recognized the potential of this early and recruited us to Johns Hopkins. Recently, Dr. Jeff Cleland (our first start-up Ashvattha Therapeutics CEO) played key role in the early clinical translation. Dr. Kunal Parikh (an extraordinary innovator/entrepreneur), Dr. Emmett Cunningham (leading biotech VC, drug developer, researcher), and Dr. Barbara Slusher (neuro drug discovery expert at JHU) , and the young Zephyr group (Ehsan Agahi, Praneeth Goli, Gokul Kannan), have partnered with us to move this to large-scale impact. Our parents/kids, the Wilmer Eye Institute and Johns Hopkins were tremendous sources of strength. At each stage, there were many ‘valley of death’ moments, but something ‘remarkable’ would happen and we will overcome the challenge. Everyday, as I go up the elevator in our research building at Hopkins, I used to feel like a kid in a candy store. I used to tell myself that ‘do not worry about failure – give your best effort. You just need some rice and lentil soup (rasam) to survive’. As the book said, I was confident that my basic needs would be take care of (especially by my physician wife, who was very nice!). Slowly, I realized that my wife/collaborator has as much resolve as me. Being a researcher and surviving well at Hopkins Medicine, is some ways is like having to hit a home run every at bat to survive! Now, I tell my investors, ‘How bad can we be – we survived for 15 years covering for most of our lab research expenses, including our salaries?. I found that investors are shocked to hear this but are pleasantly surprised by the ‘validation’ of research by others funding agencies!
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote?” Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
Most definitely, happiness comes from within. It is not in material wealth. If we do science/research for fame, it can be fleeting. In the long term, science has a way of rewarding those who have a sense of wonderment, who enjoy the process of discovery, without worrying about end results. This country, and Johns Hopkins are crucibles for those who are bold enough to take on and solve big society and medical problems. I lucked out and learned what makes me happy, and bet everything on it, knowing that my basic needs are taken care of. This is also because of my humble beginnings.
You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
(1) You have to sacrifice every ability and resource you have for the success of the larger goal and business. In our lives, both my wife and I sacrificed a lot of things to survive both our science and businesses. We missed many key moments in our children’s lives – we barely celebrated anything. We were faced with ‘many near death experiences for our businesses’, with so much at stake. Positive outcomes for patients brings great inner joy – and pays off also for investors. In biotech these days, successes come after many hard circumstances.
(2) Build a core team of people you can go to ‘war’ with – trust them and be giving. In our field, businesses can succeed only when the founding scientists and business leaders work closely in unison.
(3) Just because you have a great technology and great results, do not expect that the investment world will embrace it readily. It is our responsibility to get the story out the right way to get people to understand it. When Larry Page and Sergey Brin (graduate student Google Founders) asked ‘when I search for Altavista’ is the Altavista search engine why does it NOT go to Altavista?’ and came up with ‘PageRank’, it took a while for people to get it. Yahoo could have bought them for $1M (early) and $1B (many years later)! On a smaller scale, we have been finding that it is taking a while for people to appreciate it.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion about the technology or medical devices that you are helping to create that can make a positive impact on our wellness. To begin, which particular problems are you aiming to solve?
Somewhat surprisingly, the importance and impact of getting a drug into the cells at the site of disease is highly underappreciated. If we can do this, we can solve many of the health problems faced by the world, costing trillions of dollars. We discovered a scalable way to do this into cells (especially inflammatory and neuronal cells) that are the key targets for many unmet needs. This would dramatically help any drug realize its full potential for impacting human health. This led us to develop targeted treatments for several neurological, pain, and ocular disorders.
How do you think your technology can address this?
We solved the above problem using a simple practical way that could benefit patients quickly. We developed tiny, safe nanoparticles called dendrimers (tree like polymers), that target inflammatory cells and neurons at the disease site wherever it is. Impressively, this happens even if you give it systemically (intravenous (IV) or even oral). We validated this extensively in dozens of animal models, and now in important human trials. For example, a recent Phase 2 trial with our drug migaldendranib@ showed that once-a-month subcutaneous administration could drastically reduce the need for costly, invasive, monthly injections of anti-VEGF medications into the eye in patients suffering from diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration. This could be transformative for patients (who could be more easily treated early stages with our drug, with worldwide adaptation of the treatment), improving outcomes. For investors, this is rather transformative, since the field has been seeking approaches to address these >$100B opportunities for decades. Since our compounds are safe and likely to pass Phase 1 trials, our value proposition is that we can bring a drug from the start to Phase 2 trials, for less than $25M. We can develop treatments for challenging neurological, pain and mental health disorders. We can develop superior, precision therapies for treating other retinal disorders, which are easy and less expensive to administer and practical even in resource limited settings around the world. We hope to marry our technology with formidable VC and pharma partners to accelerate the impact.
Can you tell us the backstory about what inspired you to originally feel passionate about this cause?
Many years ago, I realized that the scientific world forces you on a linear path to discovery that is slow and methodical. However, non-linear progress comes from ‘intuition’. For many reasons, these are not uniformly enabled well beyond the ‘Silicon Valley’. I always felt like an outsider all my life, so was not afraid to enter into new fields, without worrying about failing. A trip to the ‘Chicago Museum of Science and Industry’ with kids and the spirit of innovation catalyzed this belief, and we were on our way. I intrinsically love the ‘underdog’ role, so it fit the journey. I saw that lot of the ways to deliver drugs to target cells were complex and did not do that well in human trials, even after large investments. Early on, people thought nanomedicines could help improve and build on this complex approach – still did not lead to appreciable success in humans! I tried to use my ‘polymer physics’ training to see who we could ‘physics’ to target cells, taking advantage of what the disease’ gives you. This led me to think, ‘what if a nanoparticle, by itself, could be eaten up by a disease cell at the site of injury, helped by what is happening to the disease tissue and cells. Through an interesting series of analyses, we arrived at a particular class of dendrimer nanoparticles called hydroxyl PAMAM dendrimers, which were the exact opposite of conventional wisdom ideas to gets drugs into the brain and the retina.
How do you think this might change the world?
There have been 50+ years of intensive research to deliver drugs to the brain to treat CNS diseases as cerebral palsy, epilepsy, depression, pain, diabetic retinopathy. We have developed a way to treat them effectively, with early potential in multiple Phase 2 trials. These may expand to superior gene and gene-editing technologies, and novel treatments for Alzheimer’s, Parkinsons, and substance use disorders.
Can you see any potential drawbacks to this technology that people should think more deeply about?
For now, our approach seems to be very safe and highly effective in humans. If organs and cells are healthy, there is minimal uptake of our nanoparticle. This is a major advantage. We think that the negative ‘perceptions of nanotechnology’, often fueled by social media, and our community’s insufficient attempts to educate society on the benefits of carefully developed nanomedicines, are the key concerns. Careful FDA regulations are in place to address safety issues.
Based on your experience and success, can you please share “Five things you need to know to successfully create technology that can make a positive social impact?”
(1) Not taking risks in life is the biggest risk you take in life.
(2) It will be very hard, so you need conviction and rigor, and a deep enthusiasm for the journey. Picasso’s paintings took decades to get recognized and appreciated.
(3) Brutally critical people are your best enablers for meaningful advancement. If you can overcome their criticisms, you can win. Some people can never be won over, but USA is a country where if an idea is sufficiently good, it would get a chance.
(4) Start with an end goal in mind – if I build it, will they come? Unless you are in Silicon Valley or Boston for Biotech, the bar is very high for early investing. Therefore, identifying who will pay for the drug in the end and why is important.
(5) Early on, build a team who is completely in love with the idea, as opposed to monetary benefits from it.
(6) Build an impeccable reputation and network relentlessly with the funding entities. ‘Missionary zeal’ on the science, and ‘bringing resources’ to help it are critical. When the funding environment is the worst, it is good to start a company, since it will be built on the harshest realities, equipping it for easier times.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
Be genuinely enthusiastic about whatever you are doing – your true calling that will enable you to change the world, will come to you. I am always inspired by the freshmen quarterback, who make the perfect read at the end of a football game watched by millions. He does not care about the pressure; he just does his job perfectly and then jumps up and down with pure joy! When my students bring me great results, or when our stuff works clinically, I get tremendous joy, that has nothing to do with money or fame. If our efforts succeed in impacting human health meaningfully, my kids have told me that they would allow me to write a book on how destiny/intuition, followed by sincere pursuits build on rigorous research, can lead to an improbable journey fueled by like-minded people, for a rural Indian kid who once studied under a tree! In short, an American dream story.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why?
Jensen Huang (US, who knows how to see and catalyze an outside the box idea), and Mukesh Ambani (the greatest business person in India now, because I want him to see how we can use our approach to revolutionize the biotech industry/markets in India!).
Closing Thoughts
Dr. Kannan’s story is a powerful testament to what can happen when intuition, integrity, and scientific rigor converge with a deep desire to serve humanity. From studying under a tree in rural India to pioneering global biotech innovation, his journey reflects the limitless potential of curiosity and courage — and how one individual’s commitment to “thinking outside the box” can change the future of medicine.
If you want to follow him, you can do so on LinkedIn or Twitter (X).
