Category: Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery
Eshelman Institute for Innovation awards $3.5 million across 24 research projects
May 29, 2019On June 1, the Eshelman Institute for Innovation (EII) awarded $3.5 million across 24 projects to support research and education at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The EII, created in 2014 with a $100 million gift from alumnus and pharmaceutical executive, Fred Eshelman, serves as an engine for innovation within the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. Continuing on the previous theme, in this cycle the Institute is funding innovative solutions to address society’s pressing problems in healthcare, such as developing therapeutics for cancer, utilizing 3D approaches to treat osteoporosis, developing artificial intelligence to predict adverse drug events, and implementing … Read more
Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure grants researchers $170,000
May 24, 2019Goal to develop tumor-homing stem cell beacons for immune-based cancer therapy Shawn Hingtgen, Ph.D., Gianpietro Dotti, Ph.D., and Samir Mitragotri, Ph.D., had an idea – collaborate to create a cell therapy unlike any other to target hard-to-treat cancers. The three researchers from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Harvard University, are utilizing each of their strengths to develop a new approach to cell therapy for brain cancer. Hingtgen said their team is developing a hybrid cell therapy that begins by loading neural stem cells with nanoparticle “backpacks”. When released into the brain, the cells … Read more
Researchers study strategies for using nanotechnology to boost cancer therapeutics
May 2, 2019University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers presented innovative new strategies for using tiny particles – particles the size of a DNA molecule or the width of a human hair – to boost cancer treatment as part of the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence/National Cancer Institute site visit on Tuesday. The researchers, who are members of the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence, delivered updates on their latest research into using nanotechnology to potentially improve cancer treatment as part of the day’s agenda of meetings, talks and poster presentations at the Carolina Club. “The Carolina Center for Cancer … Read more
Mucommune Receives Over $3M to Advance Muco-Trapping Antibodies
March 20, 2019Mucommune LLC has been awarded over $3 million in five separate federal grants over the past several months to advance its muco-trapping antibody technology. The company was launched in 2016 by Sam Lai, Ph.D., an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. The muco-trapping antibody technology advanced by Mucommune is based on engineering the Fc region of IgG antibodies to interact with mucins. Tuning the Fc region to combine with mucins enables antibodies to immobilize viral and bacterial pathogens in different mucosal secretions, including respiratory airways, GI tract and female reproductive tract. Once the pathogens are trapped in … Read more
Huang, Kabanov and Roth Recognized for Research Influence
November 28, 2018Three faculty members from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy were recognized on the Clarivate Analytics list of Highly Cited Researchers for 2018. Leaf Huang, Ph.D., Alexander Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr.Sci., and Bryan Roth, Ph.D., M.D., were among 6,000 scientists worldwide and across all fields who were recognized for their influence, through the publication of multiple highly cited papers, over the last decade. Huang, Kabanov and Roth were three of the 34 UNC-Chapel Hill scientists recognized. Huang is a Fred Eshelman Distinguished Professor, who joined the School’s faculty in 2005. He has published over 380 peer-reviewed articles, over 160 invited reviews … Read more
Kabanov Named President of Russian-American Scientists Association
November 7, 2018Alexander Kabanov, Ph.D., Dr.Sci., assumed office as president of the Russian-American Scientists Association (RASA-America) on Nov. 5. Kabanov is the Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor and director of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and co-director of the Carolina Institute for Nanomedicine at UNC-Chapel Hill. The RASA-America transfer of authority ceremony took place at the organization’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. “We believe that our American organization will go on and grow stronger. We will carry out international activities, assisting people all over the world who find themselves in a situation similar to ours,” Kabanov said. Kabanov … Read more
Ainslie Awarded $1.89M NIH Grant to Develop Multiple Sclerosis Vaccine
October 16, 2018The National Institutes of Health awarded a grant of nearly $2 million to Kristy Ainslie, Ph.D., for a proposal to develop a therapeutic vaccine for multiple sclerosis. Ainslie is an associate professor in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, as well as an adjunct associate professor in the UNC Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. She said the project’s long-term goal is to design a biodegradable, tunable particle system to serve as a therapeutic vaccine to alleviate multiple sclerosis. Multiple sclerosis is a disease of the central … Read more
Hingtgen Awarded UNC Hettleman Prize for Young Faculty
October 12, 2018Shawn Hingtgen, Ph.D., was awarded the Philip and Ruth Hettleman Prize for Artistic and Scholarly Achievement by Young Faculty by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Hingtgen is an associate professor at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy in the Division of Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics. His research harnesses the potential of stem cells to develop new and better methods for treating terminal cancer. Working closely with an interdisciplinary team of researchers and clinicians, Hingtgen showed how skin cells could be flipped into stem cells that hunt down and deliver cancer-killing drugs to glioblastoma, the deadliest malignant brain … Read more
Stem Cells Show Promise as Drug Delivery Tool for Childhood Brain Cancer
August 28, 2018The latest in a series of laboratory breakthroughs could lead to a more effective way to treat the most common brain cancer in children. Scientists from the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy and University of North Carolina Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center reported results from early studies that demonstrate how cancer-hunting stem cells, developed from skin cells, can track down and deliver a drug to destroy medulloblastoma cells hiding after surgery. Previously, UNC Lineberger’s Shawn Hingtgen, PhD, and his collaborators showed in preclinical studies they could flip skin cells into stem cells that hunt and deliver cancer-killing drugs to glioblastoma, the deadliest … Read more
CNDD’s Bahnson Receives SFRRI Young Investigator Award for Redox Biology Talk
August 6, 2018Edward Bahnson, Ph.D., a member of the Center for Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery and an assistant professor of surgery at UNC School of Medicine, received a Young Investigator Award at the 19th biennial meeting of the Society for Free Radical Research International Bahnson received the award for his talk, “Improving Arterial Surgery Outcomes: Combating Restenosis with Nanotechnology and Redox Modulation.” The SFRRI meeting was held in Lisbon, Portugal, June 4–7, 2018, SFRRI Lisboa 2018 was a prominent forum for the latest advances in the fundamentals of reduction–oxidation reaction biology, also known as redox biology, and free radical research and its … Read more