Two Nebraska researchers, Janos Zempleni and Jiantao Guo, have launched a startup company to bring to market an innovative method for delivering therapeutics, gene editing tools, plasmids and more to targeted locations in the human body. The company, Minovacca, will commercialize the use of universal milk exosomes, which are nanoparticles naturally found in milk, to transport cargo to human cells.
Janos Zempleni
faculty
Professor
Nutrition & Health Sciences
Willa Cather Professor of Molecular Nutrition
Nutrition & Health Sciences
Bio
Janos Zempleni is director of the Nebraska Center for Prevention of Obesity Diseases. With research funding from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, private foundations and industry, Zempleni developed an internationally renowned research program with a focus on natural nanoparticles, or exosomes, and their cargos in milk. His research has an emphasis on optimal infant nutrition, gene regulation by milk exosomes and the delivery of therapeutic payloads to pathological tissues through modified milk exosomes. He has mentored more than 100 undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral associates and visiting scientists, published 140 research papers and presented his research internationally. (Updated May 2025)