Monday, January 29, 2007

Northeastern researchers win $1.2M nanotech grant

By Catherine Williams

A team of Northeastern University researchers is developing an implantable sensor with the ability to detect different types of cancer and determine how a tumor is responding to drug therapies in lab rats.

The research goal is to design a nanobio-chip, which is intended for animal testing but could eventually be considered for human trials. The promise of the technology has won the team a $1.2 million grant for nanotechnology research from Los Angeles-based W.M. Keck Foundation, according to university officials.

The project is representative of the type of cross-disciplinary research projects that have been a trend at the university for the past several years. The two-year project, if successful, could accelerate drug-testing cycles, said Ahmed Busnaina, project leader and engineering professor at Northeastern.

The project is a collaboration across the fields of chemistry, pharmaceutical science and engineering, said Busnaina, who also serves as director of the National Science Foundation Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center for High-Rate Nanomanufacturing, based at Northeastern.

"We have a center because we realize the potential of doing interdisciplinary science," said Busnaina.

Busnaina said collaboration is vital to the success of the project. Busnaina shares the grant with Barry Karger, chair of Northeastern's analytical chemistry department and director of The Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis, and Vladimir Torchilin, chair of Northeastern's department of pharmaceutical sciences and director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine.

Nanotechnology-based business in Massachusetts raked in $477 million in venture funding from 1995 through the third quarter of 2006, according to New York-based Lux Research Inc. Commercialization of research is one of Busnaina's directives at the center, he said.

Northeastern University in Boston has received $34.4 million in nanotechnology-based research funding.