Sadhana Sharma, Ph. D.

Director of Research and Development

Mission: Making tissue chips and personalized medicine a reality.

My Story

Dr. Sadhana Sharma has 20+ years of experience in micro- and nano- technologies and biomaterials for developing nanomedicine, tissue engineered devices, and high throughput screening platforms for various biomedical applications. She received her masters and Ph. D. in Bioseparations from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. She also received Ph.D. (Bioengineering) from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 2002 where she developed nanostructured poly(ethylene glycol) thin films for microfabricated nanoporous controlled release chips for pharmaceutical delivery and immunoisolation applications.

Sadhana has worked with various generations of controlled release platforms for cancer and cardiovascular applications and collaborated with startups further developing and commercializing this technology. She has also developed micro/ nanoparticulate or scaffold-based platforms for pharmaceutical, gene, and vaccine delivery for a variety of disease conditions. In addition, She has extensive experience in the development of photoclickable hydrogel-based 3-D high-throughput tissue mimetics for drug screening and disease modeling. She has authored over thirty-two research articles in peer-reviewed journals, nine book chapters / conference proceedings, presented over fifty-seven technical talks/posters, and has two patents issued to her name. Sadhana has received several awards throughout her career including Fellow of Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award. She also serves as a research faculty in Chemical and Biological Engineering at University of Colorado Boulder.

Selected Publications

For full publication list go to Google Scholar

Targeted-Neuroinflammation Mitigation Using Inflammasome-Inhibiting Nanoligomers is Therapeutic in an Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis Mouse Model.

Sadhana Sharma, Sydney Risen, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Sean Boland, Anushree Chatterjee, Julie A. Moreno, and, Prashant Nagpal* (2024). ACS Chemical Neuroscience 15, 7, 1596–1608.

Large- and Small-Animal Studies of Safety, Pharmacokinetics, and Biodistribution of Inflammasome-Targeting Nanoligomer in the Brain and Other Target Organs.

Sydney Risen, Breonna Kusick, Sadhana Sharma, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Stephen Brindley, Mikayla Aguilar, Jared M. Brown, Stephanie McGrath, Anushree Chatterjee, Julie A. Moreno*, and Prashant Nagpal* (2024). ACS Pharmacol.ogy and Translational Science (In press).

Targeting Neuroinflammation by Pharmacologic Downregulation of Inflammatory Pathways Is Neuroprotective in Protein Misfolding Disorders.

Sydney J. Risen, Sean W. Boland, Sadhana Sharma, Grace M. Weisman, Payton M. Shirley, Amanda S. Latham, Arielle J. D. Hay, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Amelia D. Hines, Stephen Brindley, Jared M. Brown, Stephanie McGrath, Anushree Chatterjee, Prashant Nagpal, and, Julie A. Moreno* (2024). ACS Chemical Neuroscience 15, 7, 1533-1547.

Inflammasome-Inhibiting Nanoligomers are Neuroprotective Against Space-Induced Pathology in Healthy and Diseased 3D Human Motor and Pre-Frontal Cortex Brain Organoids.

Sadhana Sharma, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Jon Rask, Anushree Chatterjee*, Prashant Nagpal* (2024). BioRxiv.

Brain-Penetrant NF-κB and NLRP3 Targeting Nanoligomers are Therapeutic in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) Human Organoid and Mouse Models.

Sadhana Sharma, Devin Wahl, Sydney Risen, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Anushree Chatterjee, Julie A. Moreno, Thomas J. LaRocca, Prashant Nagpal* (2024). BioRxiv.

Nanoligomers targeting NF-κB and NLRP3 reduce neuroinflammation and improve cognitive function with aging and tauopathy.

Devin Wahl, Sydney J. Risen, Shelby C. Osburn, Tobias Emge, Sadhana Sharma, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Anushree Chatterjee, Prashant Nagpal, Julie A. Moreno, Thomas J. LaRocca* (2024). BioRxiv.

Microbiome- and Host Inflammasome-Targeting Inhibitor Nanoliogmers are Therapeutic in Murine Colitis Model.

Sadhana Sharma, Vincenzo S. Gilberto, Cassandra L. Levens, Anushree Chatterjee, Kristine A. Kuhn, Prashant Nagpal* (2024). BioRxiv.

Identifying an Optimal Neuroinflammation Treatment Using a Nanoligomer Discovery Engine. Sadhana Sharma, Curtis Borski, Jessica Hanson, Micklaus A. Garcia, Christopher D. Link, Charles Hoeffer, Anushree Chatterjee, and ,Prashant Nagpal* (2022) ACS Chem. Neurosci. 2022, 13, 23, 3247–3256.

Reversing Radiation-Induced Immunosuppression Using a New Therapeutic Modality. Colleen M Courtney, Sadhana Sharma, Christina Fallgren, Michael M Weil, Anushree Chatterjee, Prashant Nagpal* (2022). Life Sciences in Space Research, 35, 127-39.

Looking on the horizon; potential and unique approaches to developing radiation countermeasures for deep space travel.

Rihana S Bokhari, Afshin Beheshti, Sarah E Blutt, Dawn E Bowles, David Brenner, Robert Britton, Lawrence Bronk, Xu Cao, Anushree Chatterjee, Delisa E Clay, Colleen Courtney, Donald T Fox, M Waleed Gaber, Sharon Gerecht, Peter Grabham, David Grosshans, Fada Guan, Erin A Jezuit, David G Kirsch, Zhandong Liu, Mirjana Maletic-Savatic, Kyle M Miller, Ruth A Montague, Prashant Nagpal, Sivan Osenberg, Luke Parkitny, Niles A Pierce, Christopher Porada, Susan M Rosenberg, Paul Sargunas, Sadhana Sharma, Jamie Spangler, Daniel Naveed Tavakol, Dilip Thomas, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Chunbo Wang, Luke Whitcomb, Damian W Young, Dorit Donoviel* (2022). Life Sciences in Space Research (35) 105-112.

Tethering transforming growth factor β1 to soft hydrogels guides vascular smooth muscle commitment from human mesenchymal stem cells. Yonghui Ding, Richard Johnson, Sadhana Sharma, Xiaoyun Ding, Stephanie J Bryant and Wei Tan* (2020). Acta Biomateralia 105 , 68-7.

Biomimetic soft fibrous hydrogels for contractile and pharmacologically responsive smooth muscle.

Yonghui Ding, Xin Xu, Sadhana Sharma, Michael Floren, Kurt R Stenmark, Stephanie J Bryant, Corey P. Neu and Wei Tan* (2018). Acta Biomateralia 74 121-130.

Effects of cell adhesion motif, fiber stiffness, and cyclic strain on tenocyte gene expression in a tendon mimetic fiber composite hydrogel.

Dharmesh Patel, Sadhana Sharma, Hazel RC Screen and Stephanie J Bryant* (2018). Biochem Biophys Res Commun 499(3), 642-647.

A photoclickable peptide microarray platform for facile and rapid screening of 3-D tissue microenvironments.

Sadhana Sharma, Michael Floren, Yonghui Ding, Kurt R Stenmark, Wei Tan* and Stephanie J Bryant* (2017). Biomaterials 143 17-28.

Electrospray Encapsulation of Toll-Like Receptor Agonist Resiquimod in Polymer Microparticles for the Treatment of Visceral Leishmaniasis.

Anthony Doung, Sadhana Sharma, Kevin Peine, Gaurav Gupta, Abhay Satoskar, Eric Bachelder, Barbara Wyslouzil and Kristy M. Ainslie* (2013). Mol Pharm 10(3), 1045-55.

Rapid Vaccination using an Acetalated Dextran Microparticulate Subunit Vaccine Confers Protection Against Triplicate Challenge by Bacillus anthracis.

Kevin Schully, Sadhana Sharma, John T. Pesce, Andrea M. Keane-Myers, Eric Bachelder and Kristy M. Ainslie* (2013). Pharma Res 30(5) , 1349-1361.

Enhanced Activity of Horse Radish Peroxidase Encapsulated in Acetalated Dextran Microparticles Stored Outside Cold Chain Conditions.

Sadhana Sharma, Naveen Kanthamneni, Samantha A. Meenach, Beau Billet, Ji.-C. Zhao, Eric Bachelder and Kristy M. Ainslie* (2012). Int J Pharm 431(1-2) , 101-110.

Hypertrophy, gene expression, and beating of neonatal cardiac myocytes are affected by microdomain heterogeneity in 3D.

Matthew W. Curtis, Sadhana Sharma, Tejal A. Desai, and Brenda Russell* (2010) . Biomed Microdev 12 1073-1085.

High throughput assembly of spatially controlled 3D cell clusters on a micro/nano platform.

Sadhana Sharma, Daniel Gallego-Perez, Natalia Higuita-Castro, Rashmeet K. Reen, Andre F. Palmer, Keith J. Gooch, L. James Lee, John J. Lannutti and Derek J. Hansford* (2010). Lab on a chip 10 775-782.

Quantitative XPS Analysis of PEG-Modified Silicon Surfaces

Ketul C. Popat, Sadhana Sharma, and Tejal A. Desai* (2004). J. Phys. Chem. B 2004, 108, 17, 5185–5188.

Release of biologically functional interferon-alpha from a nanochannel delivery system.

Sadhana Sharma, Gregory B. Lesinski, Kimberly Varker, Piyush Sinha, Mauro Ferrari and William E. Carson* (2005). Biomed. Microdevices 7(1) 71-79.

Release of biologically functional interferon-alpha from a nanochannel delivery system.

Sadhana Sharma, Gregory B. Lesinski, Kimberly Varker, Piyush Sinha, Mauro Ferrari and William E. Carson* (2005). Biomed. Microdevices 7(1) 71-79.

Evaluation of the stability of nonfouling ultrathin poly(ethylene glycol) films for silicon-based microdevices.

Sadhana Sharma, Robert W Johnson and Tejal A Desai* (2004). Langmuir 20(2) , 348-356.