News Release

UNC Lineberger receives one of seven
large NCI grants for small science

CHAPEL HILL -- The National Cancer Institute has named the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center as one of seven institutions nationwide in the NCI Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer.

The funds for the first year of this five-year award total $3,899,965 and will establish the Carolina Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence. Officials said the grant would fund projects to harness emerging developments in nanotechnology to improve cancer diagnostics and imaging and therapy, and create new jobs for North Carolina.

Dr. Rudy Juliano, professor of pharmacology in UNC’s School of Medicine and UNC Lineberger member, has been contributing to this field for more than two decades and is principal investigator of the grant.

"The UNC group of investigators is diverse and comes from across campus and disciplines. Chemists, physicists, engineers, tumor biologists, pharmacologists, oncologists and radiologists are all working together to translate opportunities created by new developments in nanotechnology into better care for cancer patients. Our faculty was joined by collaborators from North Carolina State University, Duke and the University of California at San Francisco."

Cancer nanomedicine results from a convergence of the biological and physical sciences. Scientists have learned that cells function as assemblies of biological nanomachines, and abnormalities of cancer and other diseases often are based on malfunction of those nanomachines.

In the physical sciences, the properties of matter on the nanoscale differ greatly from matter on a normal scale. "Nano" usually is defined as less than 100 nanometers in size (about 0.000004 inches). Despite this tiny size, complex nanoscale devices now can be created and manipulated. Such nanodevices produced by physicists, chemists and engineers can be used to sense or to manipulate events around, on or even within, cells.

This offers the possibility of bringing the power of physical science to bear on problems of biomedical research, with implications for therapy, diagnosis, and early detection of cancer and other diseases.

"Our inclusion in this NCI program with some of the world’s premier physical science universities is a tribute to UNC’s ability to put together teams across academic boundaries," said Dr. Shelton Earp, UNC Lineberger director. "This synthesis of engineering, material science and medicine is both the future of patient care and attractive to industry at all levels.

"With recent ratings placing the Research Triangle as a top region for startup companies, large grants such as this one attract scientists and fuel economic development. New companies will be spawned as technologies mature and need to be developed and marketed to the health-care industry. This result is one small way of validating the state’s tremendous investment in the university and UNC Health Care System."

Several promising technologies will shape the research, including new developments in nanoparticle fabrication, X-ray nanotechnology and nanofluidics.

Dr. Joe DeSimone, William R. Kenan Jr. distinguished professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at UNC and N.C. State and also a UNC Lineberger member, is developing "smart" nanoparticles. Through a technology he developed at UNC called Particle Replication in Non-Wetting Templates (PRINT), he is able to make nanoparticles uniform in size and shape. These nanoparticles can be "loaded" with X-ray or MRI contrast agents or medicines. The nanoparticles are "smart" in that they will be formulated to interact with receptors on specific cell types and release their "cargo" on contact. One result is better, more targeted delivery of drugs in the body.

"We are thrilled to be part of NCI’s team of nanotechnology centers," DeSimone said. "This support will enable our vision to dramatically improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer by tapping into technologies from the electronics industry traditionally used for the fabrication of highly uniform nanoscale transistors and applying them to the fabrication of highly precise, shape-specific nanoscale vehicles for the direct delivery of therapeutics and imaging agents to individual cancer cells."

Dr. Otto Zhou, professor of physics and astronomy in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences and a UNC Lineberger member, is developing a new method of medical X-ray imaging based on pulsed nanofibers. The pulsed emission nanofiber system captures images of the body or a specific organ while they are moving. The result, Zhou said, is more precise and sensitive X-rays providing earlier detection of tumors before they get too large to treat, as well as an easier procedure for the patient.

Dr. John Ramsey, professor of chemistry in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, is working on "nanofluidics" devices perhaps more easily understood as "labs on a chip." Using this technology, a "nanofluidics" machine the size of a playing card will analyze one drop of blood and have almost instantaneous results on a vast array of blood measurements.

Other institutions named as Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence are:

the California Institute of Technology, the University of California at San Diego, Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University, Northwestern University and Washington University in St. Louis.

For more information about UNC’s ongoing research in nanotechnology, visit
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/fall2005/zhou.php and
http://research.unc.edu/endeavors/fall2005/desimone.php

For more information on nanotechnology, visit http://nano.cancer.gov/

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UNC Lineberger contact: Dianne Shaw, (919) 966-7834 or dgs@med.unc.edu