Researchers Test Nanotech Mode of Drug Delivery
Computer model image of a fullerene-based artificial membrane courtesy of Andreas Hirsch, Ph.D., University of Erlangen, Germany
HOUSTON - ( June 15, 2004 ) - Scientists will experimentally test-drive a tiny carbon molecule shaped like a soccer ball as a superior vehicle for delivering medication in precise amounts at exactly the right spot.
The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston has joined with C Sixty, Inc., a pioneering biopharmaceutical company based in Houston, to study the use of fullerenes - hollow, spherical molecules composed exclusively of carbon atoms - in the delivery of anesthesia and contrast imaging dyes. Laboratory research of this application of nanotechnology is funded by a $252,000 grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Administration.
"We believe that these modified nanomaterials can be designed to home in on target areas in the body - inflamed or infected regions, for example - and then more precisely deliver the desired imaging agent or medication based on environmental cues at the site," said principal investigator S. Ward Casscells III, M.D., vice president of biotechnology at the health science center.
The project could lead to superior imaging for medical conditions that are difficult to characterize with current techniques and more refined delivery of anesthesia or other medications.
C Sixty is a leading company in the biomedical application of nanotechnology - construction of devices from single atoms and ultra-small molecules measured in billionths of a meter.
C Sixty President Russ Lebovitz, M.D., Ph.D., is enthusiastic about the collaboration and the possibilities for developing important new therapeutic and diagnostic reagents. "C Sixty's fullerene monomers can self-assemble to form highly stable structures that can be used to deliver drugs, imaging agents and anesthetics to specific tissues and to release their payloads only at the correct destinations," Lebovitz said.
Researchers will modify the naturally occurring fullerenes, also known as buckyballs, to produce artificial membranes with both water-soluble and water-repellent qualities. The membranes are expected to release the medication embedded in the buckyball based on characteristics of the surrounding tissue, such as acidity and temperature. Fullerenes also would be equipped externally with antibodies or other molecular recognition factors that will help them navigate to targeted sites.
UT researchers will first seek to characterize and test the modified fullerenes and their ability to deliver imaging dye and anesthesia in lab experiments. Research would then proceed to an animal model before any clinical trials could begin with human subjects.
Scientists Jay Conyers, Ph.D., an instructor in the UT Medical School Department of Internal Medicine, and Paul Cherukuri, cardiology research fellow, will work with Casscells on the project. Charles Dunlap, an undergraduate bioengineering student from the University of Pennsylvania also is assigned to the project.
C Sixty is providing the fullerenes in cooperation with Andreas Hirsch, Ph.D., a leading expert on nanotechnology and developer of modified fullerenes, known as lipofullerenes. Hirsch, a professor of chemistry at the University of Erlangen in Germany and C Sixty's chief scientific officer, holds numerous patents on fullerene chemistry. Hirsch also has served on C Sixty's scientific advisory board, which is chaired by Rice University Professor of Physics and Chemistry Richard Smalley, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of fullerenes.
The UT Health Science Center Office of Technology Management and C Sixty reached an agreement under which the company licensed its patented technology, much of it based on Hirsch's research, to the university. The health science center agreed to license any new technology developed by the research collaboration to C Sixty.
C Sixty's in-house drug development focuses on the antioxidant activity of fullerenes - their ability to scavenge loose electrons that have been implicated in neurodegenerative illnesses, stroke, cardiovascular disease and chronic diseases such as diabetes.
Last October, C Sixty and pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. announced an exclusive research license, supply agreement and commercial license option agreement under which Merck will seek to develop drugs based on C Sixty's fullerene antioxidants with therapeutic potential in two undisclosed therapeutic areas.
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