The National Institutes of Health has awarded a team of researchers at UNMC an $8.8 million grant to continue their work developing long-acting medicines targeting HIV/AIDS.
Dr. Howard Gendelman, professor and chair of the UNMC Department of Pharmacology and Experimental Neuroscience, is the principal investigator on the grant.
Gendelman says he and his team are working on microscopic crystals with a specific targeting device, so the drug can enter either a specific cell or a tissue.
Using nanomedicine means individuals may be able to take a pill once a month or every few months as opposed to several times a day for weeks.
"Now we bring the drug into the cell so the longevity of the drug depends on the breakdown of the crystal inside the drug. The drug is released slowly into the blood where it’s then metabolized so we have an extra step in protecting the time the drug is being administered by protecting the drug inside the cell.”
Gendelman says by engineering the delivery of the drug, doctors can bring the drug to the site of action, not only inside a specific cell but also the sub-compartment inside the cell where the disease is continuing.
He says they can pinpoint ongoing infectious or degenerative diseases and bring the drug within a millimeter of where the action is occurring.
UNMC is currently developing a nanomedicine manufacturing facility on their campus to enable a new product.