New UAB – NIH Training Grant Targets Researchers in Nanotechnology

A new graduate training program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) aims to train a highly skilled workforce that would apply nanoscale materials to biosensors for early diagnosis of diseases, biomedical implants and regenerative medicine.

March 20, 2008

• Skilled workforce is needed to realize clinical applications of nanoscale materials

• Applications include biomedical implants

• Nanoscale materials are assembled at the scale of one-billionth of a meter

• Grant includes the schools of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Medicine and Engineering

• Training grant is a first of its kind for Alabama

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A new graduate training program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) aims to train a highly skilled workforce that would apply nanoscale materials to biosensors for early diagnosis of diseases, biomedical implants and regenerative medicine.

The first four students recently began their study and research in the training program, titled Nanotechnology in Biosensors and Bioengineering. The interdisciplinary program is funded by a five-year $645,830 institutional training grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) - National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). This is the first pre-doctoral training program in Alabama to be funded by the (NIBIB). Yogesh Vohra, Ph.D., UAB Department of Physics and director of the UAB Center for Nanoscale Materials and Biointegration (CNMB), is the principal investigator on the grant, which crosses multiple departments in the schools of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Medicine and Engineering.

"The program's goal is to reduce the time from discovery of a new nanotechnology tool or material to its application in medical devices, tissue engineering and biosensors," Vohra said. "Students are expected to take interdisciplinary courses in this program in order to take nanotechnology from design to clinical application."

Some of the projects students are working on with faculty include:

  • Vascular grafts: Using polymers containing nano-fibers
  • Therapeutic applications: Using nanoparticles to deliver a drug to a tumor site inside a body
  • Biomedical implants: Applying coatings made of nanomaterials to implants to reduce the wear of the surface, the reason why most implants fail

Nanoscale materials are assembled at the scale of one billionth of a meter and they exhibit fundamentally different physical, chemical and biological properties. The enhanced properties of materials due to nanostructuring will play a key role in future advances in materials research, scaffolds for tissue engineering, novel materials and coatings for biointegration, nanoparticles for biomedical imaging and biomarkers of diseases.

The NIBIB is an Institute within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted to merging the physical and biological sciences to accelerate the discovery and development of new technologies that prevent illnesses or treat them when they do strike.

Other co-investigators include Susan Bellis, associate professor of the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, David Graves, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Chemistry. School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics; Gregg Janowski, Ph.D., Department of Materials Science and Engineering, School of Engineering; and Tim Wick, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Engineering.

The four students are:

  • Anna Lauren Rast of Hoover - Ph.D. program in Physics, mentor - Andrei Stanishevsky, Ph.D.
  • Joel M. Anderson of Anderson, S.C. - Ph.D. program in Biomedical Engineering, mentor - Ho-Wook Jun, Ph.D.
  • Jason S. Hudson of Jackson, Tenn. - Ph.D. program in Chemistry, mentor - David Graves, Ph.D.
  • William C. Clem of Athens, Ga. - Ph.D. program in Biomedical Engineering, mentor Susan Bellis, Ph.D., and Yogesh Vohra, Ph.D.