NANOTECHNOLOGY

PURPOSE

The purpose of this paper is to seek condideration, approval and endorsement of UPM under RUGS allocation:

i. Application of a 3 year research and innovation (R&I)
project entitle "Nanobiotechnology of Drug and Gene Delivery",
that is targeted to start in the year 2008.

ii. Fund of RM2 million and another RM2.4 million for special instrument
(FESEM and RAMAN spectrophotometer, which can also be used by other researcher in UPM)
as detailed herein to support the management and implementation of the various project activities.

BACKGROUND

Recently, nanotechnology has been rapidly emerging in biomedical and biotechnological application, including drug and gene delivery carries, disease diagnosis, and cancer therapy. In most application, bionanomaterials such as liposomes, bionanohybrids and biodegradable polymers have played key roles in nanomedicine because they are considered to safe in the human body. In contrast, the use of inorganic nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes, matels, and metal oxide nanoparticles has been limited by safety issues in biomedical applications.

Since recent cytotoxicity studies on carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have shown that biocompatibility of nanomaterials might be mainly dertermind by surface functionalization rather than by size, shape, and materials permit a wide range of functionality arising from their unique optical, electrical and physical properties, they may provide a solution for many physical barriers of the cell that limit biomedical applications.

Nanotubes and nanoparticles are attractive vehicles for drug and gene delivery because of their hollow and porous structures and facile surface functionalization. Their inner void of slit can take up a large amount of drugs or genes, and the open ends of pores serve as gates that can control the release of drugs or genes. Furthermore, the hollow tubular nanoparticle, can be differentially functionalized between the inner and outer surfaces, which can provide a platform of mutifunctionality into the nanoparticles through sequential and sectionalized surface modifications. Most importantly, unlike spherical nanoparticles, since hollow structure isolate drugs or genes payload from the environment, they can transport the payloads safetly into the cell withiout hydrolytic degradation of biological payload or aggregation of nanomaterials causes by many hydrophobic drug molecules during the delivery into the call.

 

THE OBJECTIVE

1.         Develop new generation of drugs-inorganic nanohybrids useful for controlled release formulation to be used in pharmaceutical industry.

2.         Construct novel gene-bionanohybrids for gene carries and gene vector.

3.         Develop microchips for drug delivery system.