Tatiana Bronich, Ph.D., professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the College of Pharmacy, co-director of the Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine, and recently named UNMC’s ninth Scientist Laureate, credits those who came before her.
Foremost, her mother. “Professor Galina Sirtsova,” Dr. Bronich said, “a wonderful person, scientist and educator, who has been one of the leaders in the development of chemical sciences and chemical education in Moldova.”
Dr. Sirtsova is noted in a book celebrating that nation’s outstanding women, Dr. Bronich said.
By age 11, Dr. Bronich was helping her mother grade exams. She received a first-hand view of a scientist’s life. Her mother, a department chair, was a tremendous role model.
It could be exciting. It could be frustrating. “She was very, very devoted,” Dr. Bronich said.
In watching her mother, Dr. Bronich knew what she wanted to do.
“My memories of her have always carried me through many moments of doubt and hopeless situations,” she said.
Dr. Bronich became fascinated by chemistry. Her mentor in Russia was the A nanopioneer father of 2009 UNMC Scientist Laureate Sasha Kabanov, Ph.D. Dr. Kabanov, now at the University of North Carolina Eshelman School of Pharmacy, eventually helped recruit Dr. Bronich to UNMC.
“He helped me take the first steps, not only in biomedical research, but also here, in America,” Dr. Bronich said.
In Russia, Dr. Bronich had been an expert in synthetic polymers. But at UNMC, she stepped into a new world, in trying to help find an application for them in biology and medicine.
“This was of course very new, very exciting,” Dr. Bronich said.
But it was also very tough to find a niche, to make that bridge.
“When you start to do something new, it’s not very easy. There is no one who did it before that you can follow. You’ve got to explore the field, learn a lot of new stuff. And plus, you’ve just come to a new country.”
It was 20 years ago, in 1995, that Dr. Bronich came to the United States.
But in the 20 years since, she’s learned a lot of new stuff, found a home in this new country. She holds joint citizenship – she will always be Russian. But now she is American, too.
And she’s found her niche. Loves her job. She is part of a group working to design polymers to interact with therapeutic-friendly molecules as a drug-delivery vehicle, even targeting specific sites through nanomedicine.
To explain further, there are drugs that would work … but don’t have good properties for delivery.
“That’s why they are out of the scope,” Dr. Bronich said. “We try to rescue them, make them safer, and eventually move these drugs into clinical application.”
Much of this work is applicable to cancer. They work to not only better target the bad stuff, but leave good tissue unharmed.
“We try to make such systems ‘smart’ in a way that they can switch on and off certain properties, depending on the physiological surrounding, to maximize the clinical benefits of the treatment.”
It’s the kind of thing that happens at a place like UNMC, where people from different disciplines come together to solve problems. Someone with a different area of expertise might see something you hadn’t known to look for.
“Sometimes the view of the problem might be different,” Dr. Bronich said. “And that’s where the breakthrough ideas and decisions can come.”
It’s that type of thinking that drives Dr. Bronich’s most wide-ranging project. She is program director and principal investigator of a Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) grant in the Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine.
It’s a cross-academic center, featuring six projects and funded by $11.2 million over six years.
“Whatever we achieve,” she said, “whatever our achievements are, they are not because of one individual. Usually the achievements are done by a group of people, through very close collaboration.”
Dr. Bronich said she was surprised to have been named Scientist Laureate, and lauded her lab’s graduate students, postdocs and technicians for their hard work and dedication.
She also thanked her dean, Courtney Fletcher, Pharm.D., and department chair, Ram Mahato, Ph.D. And her emeritus dean and chair, Clarence Ueda, Pharm.D.,Ph.D. and Dennis Robinson, Ph.D. Pharmaceutical science staff Chris Allmon and Keith Sutton were cited too.
The atmosphere at UNMC, she said, is a collective thing. It comes from everyone.
“The collaborative atmosphere here is so great,” she said. “The people are very friendly and very open. They always share their time, their efforts with you, if you need help, if you need their advice.”
Now, as a senior scientist, she is doing the same.
Twenty years ago there had been no trail to follow in nanomedicine. And Dr. Bronich said, “We’re not there yet. But that’s what science is about.
“It’s a long series of the small steps, which every day, every hour, we are making to reach the goal.”