Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine

本提案旨在内布拉斯加大学医学中心建立一个跨学科的纳米医学中心。我们已经组建了一支在纳米医学、给药、治疗和诊断方面具有专门知识的科学家团队。现在，生化学家、药理学家、免疫学家和神经科学家将加入他们的行列。所有人都将专注于开发一种方法，最好地利用纳米级设备来改善癌症、神经退行性疾病和心血管疾病的治疗效果。这种方法将把药物输送到中枢神经系统疾病的病灶区域或直接输送到肿瘤。平行研究寻求纳米技术来改进诊断措施和疾病监测。预期的结果是最大限度地提高临床效益和限制不良的副作用。纳米技术是药物和基因传递方面发展最快的方法之一。事实上，美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）已经确定了发展纳米医学领域作为其战略计划的一个组成部分的必要性。实现这些目标的挑战需要形成多学科研究中心，这些研究中心包括材料、制药和生物科学方面的广泛专业知识，并受到创新研究的推动。这是内布拉斯加州纳米医学中心（NCN）的基础。长期目标是在癌症生物学、神经退行性疾病、分子成像（磁共振和单光子发射计算机断层扫描）以及材料和制药科学（纳米材料、聚合物、药物传递和基因传递）方面已经很强的研究领域的基础上建立和整合。设想的跨学科专业知识可以通过NCN在传统生物医学研究和材料科学之间结合起来。

This proposal seeks to develop an interdisciplinary Nanomedicine Center at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. We have assembled a team of scientists with specific expertise in nanomedicine, drug delivery, therapeutics and diagnostics. These will now be joined by biochemists, pharmacologists, immunologists and neuroscientists. All will work, with singular focus, to develop the means to best use devices of nanoscale size to improve outcomes for cancer, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular diseases. Such approaches will deliver drugs to focal areas of central nervous system disease or directly to tumors. Parallel studies seek nanotechnologies to improve diagnostic measures and disease monitoring. The anticipated outcome is to maximize clinical benefits and limit untoward side effects. Nanotechnology is amongst the most rapidly developing approaches available towards for drug and gene delivery. Indeed, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have identified the need in developing the field of Nanomedicine as an integral component of its strategic plan. The challenges in realizing these goals require the formation of multidisciplinary research centers that include broad expertise in material, pharmaceutical and biological sciences driven by innovative research. This is the foundation for the Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine (NCN). The long-term goals are to build upon and integrate already strong areas of research in cancer biology, neurodegenerative disorders, molecular imaging (magnetic resonance and single photon emission computed tomography) with material and pharmaceutical sciences (nanomaterials, polymers, drug delivery, and gene delivery). The envisioned cross-disciplinary expertise could be joined between traditional biomedical research and material sciences through the NCN.