The Nebraska Center for Rapid
Bioanalysis
• An Overview of the UNMC current COBRE
centers and Nanoimaging core facility
Yuri Lyubchenko
COBRE Retreat - January 16, 2009
Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling
PI: Peggy Wheelock, Ph.D.
First COBRE grant was received in 2003.
This CoBRE grant was to establish a center for cellular signaling that will
function to bring together senior investigators to serve as mentors for junior
investigators.
Five junior investigator projects are funded on this grant and the goal was
to assist these investigators in securing independent funding for their work.
Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling
PI: Peggy Wheelock, Ph.D.
July 2008: NIH renews Dr. Wheelock's CoBRE grant
• the winning formula Peggy Wheelock - to have two high profile
researchers as mentors for five years.
• seven junior investigators at UNMC obtained their own RO1 grants from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
•This success has led to the NIH approving a renewal of Dr. Wheelock's
Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) grant for another five
years at $10.9 million.
Peggy Wheelock: The grant has allowed us to bring together
outstanding junior and senior faculty with similar interests, which greatly
enhances the science knowledge and opportunities for collaboration."
Nebraska Center for
Nanomedicine
• Dr. Kabanov, the Parke-Davis Chair in Pharmaceutics,
UNMC College of Pharmacy, is the director of the
Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine
• Funding - $10.6 M
• "This grant allows us to attract the best and brightest
scientists to Nebraska, to develop novel technologies
that could contribute to the economy of the state with the
help of spin-off companies that would bring the results of
the scientific research to public use," Dr. Kabanov said.
Nebraska Center for
Nanomedicine
• Nanomedicine defines the emerging area
of science that uses nanomaterials, small
polymeric particles to deliver drugs safely
to disease sites, such as cancer tumors.
Center of Drug Deliver and
Nanomedicine (CDDN)
• This regent-approved Center was established
to support an interdisciplinary team of
scientists with specific expertise in
nanomedicine, drug delivery, therapeutics,
and diagnostics.
• Nanomedicine is a medical intervention at
the molecular scale for curing disease or
repairing damaged tissue.
Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine
• The four projects currently being supported through the COBRE funding are as
follows.
•
Project 1:
• Principal investigator: Elena V. Batrakova, Ph.D., assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences.
• Mentor: Howard Gendelman, M.D., chairman, department of pharmacology and experimental neuroscience,
director, Center for Neurovirology and Neurodegenerative Disorders.
• Dr. Batrakova's project focuses on creating a drug delivery system to treat Parkinson's disease using nanozymes
and immune cells in the brain as the delivery agent. Nanozymes are tiny particles consisting of an enzyme in a
protective polymer coat.
•
• Project 2:
• Principal investigator: Matthew Zimmerman, Ph.D., assistant professor of cellular and integrative physiology.
• Mentor: Irving Zucker, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the cellular and integrative physiology department.
• Dr. Zimmerman's research project focuses on using antioxidant therapy and nanozymes to treat hypertension.
•
• Project 3:
• Principal investigator: Huanyu Dou, Ph.D., assistant professor, department of pharmacology and experimental
neuroscience.
• Mentor: Surinder Batra, Ph.D., professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology.
• Dr. Dou's research project focuses on developing a cell-based nanoformulated anti-tumor therapy that would
improve biodistribution of the drug to the tumor and reduce chemotherapy-induced neurotoxicity.
•
• Project 4:
• Principal investigator: Joseph Vetro, Ph.D., assistant professor, Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine,
department of pharmaceutical sciences.
• Mentor: Alexander Kabanov, Ph.D., director, Nebraska Center for Nanomedicine.
• Dr. Vetro's research focuses on inhibiting the growth of cancer tumors by using specially developed nanocarrierse
that disrupt the tumor's ability to recruit surrounding blood vessels.
UNMC Shared Resources/Core Facilities
http://www.unmc.edu/dept/vcr/index.cfm?L1_ID=26&CONREF=18
Mass Spectrometry and Proteomics Core Facility
Nanoimaging Core Facility
Nanoimaging Core Facility
The facility is equipped with three instruments:
• The combination state of the art AFM microscope (Asylum
Research Veeco, Santa Brabara, CA) mounted on an inverted
fluorescence microscope (Olympus), allowing simultaneous
detection of fluorescently labeled samples, high resolution AFM
imaging, force spectroscopy, and manipulation at the
nanoscale.
• The stand-alone AFM (MM AFM, Veeco, Santa Brabara, CA),
capable of high-resolution imaging of various biological
samples in air and aqueous solution.
•AFM force robot (JPK Germany) allowing automate acqusition
of the data on the intermolecular interactions various molecular
systems
•The facility provides expertise for researchers in imaging, force
spectroscopy analysis, elasticity measurements and other
applications of Atomic Force Microscopy
AFM-optical microscope
MM AFM microscope
MM AFM microscope
JPK Force Robot
Force Spectroscope
Base
Force
Spectrosope
Head Controller with
TCP/IP-Interface
Stable base frame
with active User PC with
vibration isolation ForceRobot Software
Nebraska Center for Cellular Signaling
PI: Peggy Wheelock, Ph.D.
July 2008: NIH renews Dr. Wheelock's CoBRE grant
• the winning formula Peggy Wheelock - to have two high profile
researchers as mentors for five years.
• seven junior investigators at UNMC obtained their own RO1 grants from
the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
•This success has led to the NIH approving a renewal of Dr. Wheelock's
Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (CoBRE) grant for another five
years at $10.9 million.
http://www.unmc.edu/dentistry/wiki/NCCS.htm
http://app1.unmc.edu/publicaffairs/todaysite/sitefiles/today_full.cfm?match=
4656
http://www.unmc.edu/dentistry/wiki/Dr%20Margaret%20J%20Wheelock.htm
UNMC: New Potential
projects
LC-MS Determination of Bile
Acid-Sulfates As Biomarkers
for Liver Function
Yazen Alnouti, Ph.D
Assistant Professor
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences
University of Nebraska Medical Center
BA Enterohepatic Recirculation
95%
Under normal conditions, BAs are contained within
the enteroheaptic system, spill over into blood is
minimum, and urinary excretion is negligible
Rapid detection of drugs for
protein misfolding diseases.
Alexey Krasnoslobodtsev,
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
University of Nebraska Medical Center
COBRE 16 January, 2009
Conformational prerequisites for amyloidosis
Natively folded
conformations of
various types
Partially
folded
intermediate Misfold
1
Misfold
2
Misfold
3
Center for Pharmaceutical
Biophysics
• The research outcomes of the Center will serve as the
basis for the discovery of diagnostic agents and new
pharmaceutical entities for the prevention, treatment
and/or cure of diseases.
• The Center’s mission is to unite efforts of researchers
working in the areas of basic and applied pharmaceutical
and biomedical sciences, chemistry, biochemistry, and
engineering who are exploring and developing new
technologies for the analysis of biological nanosystems
in such biopharmaceutical science fields as high-
throughput screening of drugs, drug development,
diagnostics, therapeutics, single molecule
imaging/tracking and biomarker assays.