The Board Chair and Co-Founder of NanoVation Therapeutics, Dr. Pieter Cullis, has received another honour in recognition of his pioneering work on the development of lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery systems. Four decades of work on LNPs undertaken in his University of British Columbia (UBC) lab and companies he co-founded, particularly Acuitas Therapeutics, led to the LNPs that enable the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines.

Dr. Cullis was recognised for these contributions most recently with the 2022 Bloom Burton Award, presented at a gala celebration in Toronto on 29 September 2022. For the occasion, Bloom Burton produced the video below in which Dr. Cullis, together with colleagues from Acuitas, academia and industry, discuss the backstory to the development of the LNPs that have helped limit the impact of the global pandemic.

Dr. Cullis has received numerous awards over the last two years, including the Tang Prize (Taiwan), the 2021 Prince Mahidol Award (Thailand), the inaugural VinFuture Grand Prize (Vietnam), and the 2022 Canada Gairdner International Award. Some of these prizes were awarded jointly with Dr. Drew Weissman and Dr. Katalin Kariko, who have made important contributions to the development of mRNA vaccines. Acuitas Therapeutics has also already been celebrated by Life Sciences British Columbia as Life Sciences Company of the Year for 2022, and as winner of the Global Impact Award in 2021.