Rakesh Jain

Rakesh Jain has revolutionized understanding of how the tumor ECM creates physical barriers to drug delivery through elevated interstitial fluid pressure and dense desmoplastic stroma, and developed the vascular normalization strategy to improve therapeutic access. His work demonstrated that the dense ECM in pancreatic cancer, rich in hyaluronan and collagen, compresses blood vessels and severely limits drug delivery. He showed that enzymatic degradation of hyaluronan with PEGPH20 can decompress vessels and enhance chemotherapy delivery. His biomechanical framework for understanding tumor drug resistance through ECM-mediated physical barriers has transformed drug delivery strategies.