Mission
Mission
The three missions of the CNDD are to
- Apply nanotechnology and advanced drug-delivery systems to decrease the 50-60 percent failure rate of new drugs caused by poor absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity
- Facilitate the translation of new molecular-entity discoveries into human clinical trials
- Integrate nanotechnology-based therapeutics with imaging and diagnostics to create "theranostic" interventions
The CNDD fulfills its mission by
- Creating and developing cutting-edge, nanotechnology-based drug- and imaging-delivery systems. The CNDD is applying existing materials, plus new materials and nanoengineering principles, to address and solve fundamental transport barriers of chemical and molecular entities using macromolecular and nanoparticle systems.
- Facilitating drug discovery and identification of drug leads. The CNDD partners with UNC drug-discovery scientists to increase the rate at which drugs and drug leads are identified, and to reduce the rate at which leads are not advanced due to poor physical/chemical properties (i.e., solubility, stability, membrane permeability, cell localization, etc.). Examples of delivery approaches include micellular solubilization and nano-entrapment methodologies that can rapidly and efficiently be incorporated into high-throughput in-vitro screens or in-vivo animal models, which will greatly benefit drug-discovery efforts.
- Formulating and characterizing the identified preclinical and clinical leads for testing. The CNDD assesses the physical/chemical properties (i.e., pH-solubility profile, pH-stability profile, partition coefficients, membrane permeability, etc.) of the chemical and molecular leads and applies cutting-edge formulation approaches for the intended route of injection.