Sascha Goonewardena earned his BS in Biology and Philosophy from the University of Michigan and his MD (2003) from the University of Michigan Medical School.  He completed his internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals.  He returned to the University of Michigan for a fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease.   He completed a postdoctoral fellowship under Joe G.N. Garcia at the University of Chicago (currently, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at the University of Arizona) in genomics and systems biology.  After completing a clinical fellowship in Cardiovascular Medicine, Dr. Goonewardena pursued another postdoctoral fellowship under the guidance of James R. Baker, Jr., the Director of the Michigan Nanotechnology Institute for Medicine and Biological Sciences, in immunology and nanotechnology. Over the last several years, Dr. Goonewardena has been developing dendrimer-based diagnostic and therapeutic platforms to further understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying macrophage inflammatory responses and how these contribute to cardiovascular disease.  His lab is focused on engineering polymer delivery systems and microfluidic diagnostic platforms to understand the immune component of vascular disease.  He is actively collaborating across disciplines and have active mechanistic and translational projects in heart failure, coronary artery disease, and immunology.    

Representative Publications: 

Goonewardena, S. N., Zong, H., Leroueil, P. R. and Baker, J. R. (2013), Bioorthogonal Chemical Handle for Tracking Multifunctional Nanoparticles. ChemPlusChem, 78: 430–437. doi: 10.1002/cplu.201300007.  

Goonewardena, S.N., Leroueil, P.R., Gemborys, C. Tahiliani, P., Emery, S., Baker, J.R., Zong, H. (2014), Fluorogenic ‘click-on’ dendrimer reporter for rapid profiling of cell proliferation.  Bioorg Med Chem Lett,  Apr 1;23(7):2230-3. PMID: 23434421  

 Goonewardena SN, Kratz J, Zong H, Desai A, Tang S, Emery S, Baker JR Jr, Huang B.  Design considerations for PAMAM dendrimer therapeutics.  Bioorg Med Chem Lett, 2013 May 15;23(10):2872-5.  PMID: 23583511  

Goonewardena SN, Stein AB, Tsuchida RE, Rattan R, Shah D, Hummel SL.  Monocyte Subsets and Inflammatory Cytokines in Acute Decompensated Heart Failure.  J Cardiac Fail, 2016 May; 22(5):358-65.  PMCID: PMC4861694

Kanthi Y, Hyman MC, Liao H, Baek AE, Visovatti SH, Sutton NR, Goonewardena SN, Neral MK, Jo H, Pinsky DJ.  Flow-dependent expression of ectonucleotide tri(di)phosphohydrolase-1 and suppression of atherosclerosis.  J Clin Invest, 2015 125(8): 3027-36  PMCID: PMC4563746.

Chang HN, Leroueil PR, Selwa K, Gasper CJ, Tsuchida RE, Wang JJ, McHugh WM, Cornell TT, Baker JR Jr, Goonewardena SN. Profiling inflammatory responses with microfluidic immunoblotting. PLoS One, 2013 Nov 27;8(11):e81889. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081889. eCollection 2013.  PMCID:  PMC3842271

Petrovic-Djergovic D, Goonewardena SN, Pinsky DJ.   Inflammatory Disequilibrium in Stroke.  Circulation Research,  2016 June 24; 119(1):142-58. Review. PMID: 27340273 

Goonewardena, SN*.  Approaching the Asymptote: Obstacles and Opportunities for Nanomedicine in Cardiovascular Disease.  Curr Atheroscler Rep, 2012 Jun: 14 (3): 247-253. Review. PMID: 22544472. Review  PMID: 22544472