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FIVE OF UNMC's BRIGHTESTNanomedicine Reaches Down to Cellular Level

Posted on: Thursday, 6 January 2005, 15:00 CST

Dr. Alexander 'Sasha' Kabanov Works with molecules an 80,000th of the diameter of a human hair to treat cancer.

After the Iron Curtain fell, Alexander "Sasha" Kabanov transplanted himself to a place where he could continue breaking down barriers.

Kabanov's target, however, is disease, not dogma.

His tools -- forged by intellect, laboratory research and human clinical trials -- are devices 100,000 times smaller than the head of a pin that promise to detect disease without surgical invasion, then eradicate it by releasing lifesaving medicines precisely where needed.

"The research done here has amplified our understanding of nanomedicine," he said. "We are further down the road with having healthy people."

Kabanov, a fourth-generation Russian scientist, is a professor of pharmaceutical sciences in the University of Nebraska Medical Center's College of Pharmacy. From offices and laboratories in the Durham Research Center, he is pioneering the use of nanotechnology to treat cancer and other diseases as director of the Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine.

Nanomedicine, an offshoot of nanotechnology, refers to highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for curing disease or repairing damaged tissues such as bone, muscle or nerve.

Working with molecules an 80,000th of the diameter of a human hair, Kabanov discovered a polymer that enables medications to pass through cancer-cell membranes. The result in lab experiments is up to 1,000 times higher efficacy against drug-resistant tumors than conventional chemotherapy.

Kabanov said that DNA packed into a nanobody could be injected into a person to boost an immune system and teach it to kill cancer cells. Such a vaccination strategy is under study.

"I try to think of things not everybody is working on right now but things that will be important 15 years from now," he said.

The technology holds promise for more effective treatment of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and other neurodegenerative ailments because Kabanov learned how to slip medications past the cellular gatekeepers in the brain.

He said he came to Nebraska about a decade ago for the opportunity to be part of "tremendous momentum here in the research of pharmaceuticals and drug delivery -- and that's what happened."

Source: Omaha World - Herald

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