Nano Medicine (Especially last 2 paragraphs)

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FIVE OF UNMC's BRIGHTESTNanomedicine Reaches Down to Cellular Level

Dr. 'Sasha' Kabanov Works with molecules an 80,000th of

the diameter of a human hair to treat cancer.

After the Iron Curtain fell, " 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