Tatiana Bronich, Ph.D., is 2014 Scientist Laureate

Twenty years ago, Tatiana Bronich, Ph.D., arrived in America.

Dr. Bronich, now a 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, was recruited to UNMC as an expert in synthetic polymers. (Her mentor in Russia was the father of 2009 Scientist Laureate Sasha Kabanov, Ph.D.) But now she was 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 way somebody already 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.”

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. Much of this work is applicable to cancer.

It’s the kind of thing that happens at a place like UNMC, where people from different disciplines come together to solve problems.

“Sometimes the view of the problem might be different,” Dr. Bronich said. “And that’s where the breakthrough ideas and decisions can come.”

Twenty years ago there had been no trail to follow. 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,” she said.