UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics has received a grant of $925,000 from the John R. Oishei Foundation that will be used for potentially life-saving research through the nanomedicine program.
Paras N. Prasad, executive director of UB's Institute for Lasers, Photonics and Biophotonics, said he is excited about the grant. "UB is in a very envious position," he said. "This grant will give us the head start we need."
The fields of nanomedicine and nanobiotechnology focus on creating new analytical devices and therapies that are the size of one-billionth of a meter.
According to Prasad -- a SUNY distinguished professor in the UB chemistry department -- the ultimate goal is to eventually advance these technologies to the clinical stage. With new funding this goal has become more realistic.
"The nanomedicine program needed a push to break through," said Paul Hogan, program officer at the Oishei Foundation. "The nanomedicine program is now in a better position."
Hogan said the Oishei Foundation offered the help the institute because of its great potential for medical applications.
Under the grant, the foundation will be funding the institute for the next three years.
When describing how nanomedicine technology works, Prasad referred to Isaac Asimov's "Fantastic Voyage," in which the characters shrink themselves to enter a professor's body to destroy a life threatening blood clot deep in his brain. Although Asimov's story was science fiction, the nanomedicine under development is similar because scientists have developed magnetic nanoparticles named "nanoclinics" that target cancer cells, Prasad.
"If you have a deep rooted cancer, how do you reach it?" Prasad said. "Nanoparticles overcome limitations that ordinary treatments have."
Patients can receive nanoclinics intravenously or by injection at the tumor site. An MRI procedure then activates the particles' capability, causing the membranes of the cancer cells to rupture.
According to Prasad, UB's institute has been working on advances in targeted delivery systems for drugs and genes, new methods of boosting photodynamic cancer therapy, new modes of medical imaging and ways to monitor drug effects in real-time.
UB's scientists have also teamed up with the Roswell Park Cancer Institute to work on cutting-edge advances in cancer treatment.
Prasad said he believes UB and Roswell Cancer Institute are "a perfectly complimentary match" in working together on this research.
Prasad isn't the only person at UB who is excited about the unique ceramic-based nanoparticles that are being developed here on-campus.
"It's a new and interesting type of medicine and with cancer being such a serious disease, any new kinds of research into it is a good investment," said Jordan Csati, a first year pharmacy student.
According to Prasad, nanomedicine provides scientists with a "powerful avenue" towards treating cancer, but no one group can cure the disease by itself.
"Integration of faculty is the major driving force that will keep us ahead," he said.
The funding provided by the Oishei Foundation will help bring together the biologists, engineers, chemists, physicists and medical researchers that are needed to make groundbreaking advances, Prasad said.
"It seems like everyone is affected with cancer somehow and the sooner we find a cure, the better," said Rebecca James, a junior health and human services major.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
