Wednesday, October 22, 2008

NU’s Torchilin pulls in $1.5M NIH grant for nanoscale pharmaceuticals

By Mass High Tech Staff

Northeastern University reports health sciences professor Vladimir Torchilin has landed a $1.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health for research on nanoscale pharmaceuticals.
 
Torchilin, the chair of Northeastern’s department of pharmaceutical sciences and the director of the Center for Pharmaceutical Biotechnology and Nanomedicine, received the grant from the NIH’s National Cancer Institute. Under the grant, Torchilin will investigate ways to increase the efficacy of nanocarrier-based pharmaceuticals for drug and gene therapy. Many pharmaceutical agents, such as drugs or DNA, need to enter the cell to perform their therapeutic work. Torchilin’s study will address the challenges of getting these agents into the cell and reaching the target once inside.
 
Earlier this month, Northeastern’s Barnett Institute of Chemical and Biological Analysis received a $3 million donation from Louis Barnett and his family. The $3 million gift was given to allow the Barnett Institute — along with biotech industry collaborators — to build the new Center for Advanced Regulatory Analysis (CARA). About $1 million of the donation is designated as a challenge grant. CARA will test new analytical techniques and also work to create standards for regulatory workers seeking accreditation.

In July, the NSF gave the NSF Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing $12.4 million in continued funding. The center, a collaboration among the University of Massachusetts Lowell, Northeastern University and the University of New Hampshire, was established in 2004 with another $12.4 million grant from the NSF.