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Pharmacy College Plans New Research Center

Posted on: Friday, 14 April 2006, 18:00 CDT

By Eric Anderson, Times Union, Albany, N.Y.

Apr. 14--ALBANY -- Albany College of Pharmacy plans to open a new research center at the University at Albany's East Campus this summer that will focus on using nanotechnology for drug delivery and formation.

The Center for Nanopharmaceutical Sciences will employ 10 to 20 researchers, all with either medical or doctoral degrees. It will occupy space at UAlbany's Center for Functional Genomics in East Greenbush, said Shaker Mousa, who chairs the pharmacy college's Pharmaceutical Research Institute.

Mousa's research has focused on creating or restricting blood vessels to control cell growth, said Ron Lesko, the pharmacy college's director of communications.

Mousa, meanwhile, said the advantages of a nanoscale approach are many.

In chemotherapy, he said, drugs could be directed at specific cancer cells while avoiding the cells around them, minimizing the body's reaction to the drugs.

Eye diseases could be treated with contact lenses containing drugs that are released slowly over time. These approaches would be less invasive than many current treatments, Mousa said.

In an appearance in January in Albany, Dr. Mauro Ferrari of Ohio State University, who has been described as a founder of the field of biomedical nanotechnology, discussed the advantages of a nanoscale approach.

"Nanotech drugs have the ability to overcome biological barriers," he told a gathering sponsored by Bioconnex, a networking organization for the region's biotechnology sector. He described how drugs could reach their destination without activating a cell's "border patrol," as he called it.

Albany College of Pharmacy already is collaborating with Ordway Research Institute, Albany Medical Center, UAlbany and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Mousa said.

Mousa is working with Paul J. Davis, Ordway's director, on determining how the thyroid hormone works at the molecular level, and to use nanopharmaceuticals that can mimic the hormone to control tumor cell growth.

The new substance also could be used in helping heal the wounds of diabetic patients, and generating new blood vessels for heart attack or stroke patients. It could also be used to treat macular degeneration.

Mousa worked for 17 years in drug discovery at DuPont Pharmaceuticals Co. before joining the Albany College of Pharmacy four years ago. He also is a visiting scholar at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

The new center is seeking as much as $3.5 million to launch this summer, from both government and private funding sources.

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Source: Times Union

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