Russell Mumper, PhD John A McNeill Distinguished Professor Director, Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery   Division of Molecular Pharmaceutics

Research Interests

1. Nanotemplate engineering of nano-based detection devices and cell-specific nanoparticles for tumor and dendritic cell targeting and vaccines
2. Biocompatibility, hemocompatibility, and toxicology of nanoparticles and nanomaterials
3. Antibody-drug or metal chelator conjugates
4. Mucoadhesive gels and thin-films for (trans)mucosal delivery of drugs, vaccines, and microbicides
5. Anticancer and anti-inflammatory properties of berries and berry extracts

The word “nanotechnology” may sound futuristic, but as Russell Mumper, PhD, points out, the future has been around for decades.

“I’m not going to fool anybody by saying that nanotechnology is new,” says Mumper, an internationally recognized leader in applying nanotechnology to applications in pharmaceutical sciences. “ ‘Nanotechnology’ is defined by the National Nanotechnology Initiative as any type of system that has at least one dimension less than a hundred nanometers. That’s a fairly encompassing definition. There are lots of technologies that fit under that.

“For instance, liposomes have been around for more than 40 years, and they are in probably a dozen commercial products, and some of these products were approved a decade ago and meet that definition.”

However, the last ten years have seen a growing recognition of nanotechnology’s potential and an increasing ability to turn that promise into reality. Those factors, Mumper says, have sparked a nanotechnology explosion.

“People are seeing it as the next great revolution after the computer age,” he says.

Mumper is trying to make UNC-Chapel Hill a key player in that revolution. He joined the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in summer 2007 as the John A. McNeill Distinguished Professor and the director of the new Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery. The CNDD, part of a campus-wide nanomedicine initiative at UNC, will bring together scientists to create nano-scale pharmaceutical innovations for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes.

In addition to the CNDD, Mumper has been active in other nanomedicine-related ventures on campus. He is serving as co-director of the new Institute for Nanomedicine at UNC. He has developed and is directing a campus-wide nanomedicine course. On the research front, he continues to work on two NIH-funded projects using nanotechnology to treat resistant cancer and to pursue an HIV vaccine. He also is co-investigator on a large international collaboration developing microbicides to prevent HIV infection. UNC's role in the project is to develop gel and intravaginal ring dosage forms containing a nanotechnology-based microbicde that can prevent the HIV virus from entering cells. Mumper also has been overseeing the planning for the Fourth Annual Chapel Hill Drug Conference. The conference, to be hosted by the School in May 2009, will focus on the use of nanotechnology to create safe and
effective therapeutic and diagnostic products.

Tiny Particles, Huge Potential

At sizes less than one ten-thousandth of a millimeter, nanoparticles might hold the key to overcoming some of the biggest hurdles in drug delivery, such as solubility, stability, and the need to get an otherwise potent drug inside the cell. However, for nanotechnology to be successfully applied to pharmaceutics, the products must be safe and efficacious, cost effective, and able to be mass manufactured. In the case of the nano-scale liposomal commercial products introduced a decade ago, Mumper says the difficulty and cost involved in making those liposomal drugs have prevented widespread therapeutic and commercial use.

More recently, however, more viable nano-based products have been developed commercially, helping heighten the public’s awareness of the potential of nanotechnology.

“So now people are saying, ‘OK, now we see the promise is becoming a reality in commercial products,’ Mumper says. “These new products derived from nanotechnology are helping people, proven to be safe, and have market sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The promise of nanotechnology was always there. However, the reduction to practice was lagging. But now it’s been reduced to practice in many areas of the pharmaceutical sciences, and these products are having visible commercial success. As a result, more money is flowing into research and development, and people are more excited about it.”

“It’s the tip of the iceberg. Part of the plan for the center is to look at the various aspects of nanotechnology and how they merge together to make this a realization.”

Click on the links below to read about the CNDD and Mumper's work.