The future is nano: Chemical and materials science engineers lead the way with Wayne State's new nano incubator program

In recent decades, the definition of engineering has expanded to encompass diverse disciplines, and engineering itself has become a more collaborative effort, often with medicine, pharmaceuticals and chemistry. There is no better example of these changes than Wayne State University's new nano incubator program, co-directed by Guangzhao Mao and Rangaramanujam Kannan, professors in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science.

The field of nanomaterials takes a materials science-based approach to nanotechnology. It studies materials with features on the nanoscale, in particular those with special properties stemming from their nanoscale dimensions. Nanoscale is usually defined as smaller than one-tenth of a micrometer in at least one dimension, though this term is sometimes also used for materials smaller than one micrometer. One nanometer is roughly 1/80000 of the diameter of a human hair.

The mission of the Wayne State research incubator program, "Adaptive Nanomaterials for Sensing and Drug Delivery," is to synthesize, assemble and engineer adaptive nanomaterials for imaging, sensing, and drug delivery. The incubator strives to catalyze scientific innovation and create interdisciplinary training programs through the integration of expertise and resources from across the Wayne State University, Detroit Medical Center, affiliated research and clinical centers, and industry.

"Our goal is to develop a sustained interdisciplinary research and education center on nanomaterials and nanomedicine by supporting existing and new collaborations," says Mao. "That's why we need a central structure. It involves everyone from the School of Medicine to engineers to chemists. Because we're working on these very complex material and medical problems, one of us cannot do everything. The program will pool all relevant resources together to accelerate research in nanotechnology."

The incubator brings together 20 faculty members from a broad spectrum of disciplines in the College of Engineering, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the School of Medicine [see below]. These individuals have strong research records and receive a combined $5 million per year in external funding. By bringing these researchers together on nano projects, the incubator will merge significant human and laboratory resources, which should result in large, collaborative projects and grants.

The incubator will also benefit Wayne State science, engineering, pharmaceutical and medical students, who will get to work in cutting-edge research areas and gain exposure to an interdisciplinary research environment. In addition, they will have better access to resources, including those located in affiliated research and clinical centers such as Children's Hospital of Michigan, the Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Henry Ford Hospital, the Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the Karmanos Cancer Institute.

The incubator also hopes to strengthen the university's ties to industrial partners, such as BASF, Dow and DuPont.

The bulk of the incubator grant will provide graduate and postdoctoral fellowships to students working on the pilot projects. The remaining funds will be used to support educational and program initiatives. The project funds will be competitive, based on periodic assessments by an advisory board of both internal and external members. In addition to regular program research meetings and Nano@Wayne seminars, the group plans to hold annual research symposiums to communicate, highlight, and evaluate research progress as a cohesive group.

Through the incubator, work has begun on nine pilot projects that can be broadly divided into two areas: adaptive nanomaterials for imaging and sensing, and adaptive nanomaterials for drug delivery. The common theme among all nine pilot projects is the innovative synthesis, assembly and engineering of adaptive nanomaterials for applications in imaging, sensing and drug delivery.

Mao and Kannan's respective research areas represent these two areas. Mao, focusing on imaging and sensing, works on the making and characterizing of materials for applications including localized gene delivery. She, , Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences David Oupicky, and their team construct layer-by-layer polymer films that are programmed to deliver DNA to cells. Once the DNA enters the cells, it acts as a drug factory, producing therapeutic proteins. The applications for this delivery method include the regeneration of bone, neural tissue and more.

Kannan, whose research focuses on drug delivery, is developing a therapeutic approach to target and treat neuroinflammation in cerebral palsy. By developing nanotechnology-based diagnostic and therapeutic approaches for prevention and treatment of maternal infections and fetal brain injury, he and his team's approach may one day eliminate or lessen the incidences of cerebral palsy, along with other neuroinflammatory diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and Parkinson's disease.

Mao explains how chemical and materials science engineering fits into the broader picture of the nano incubator: "We like to be the bridge between basic science and finer applications," she says. "I use the basic science as a foundation to direct my research, but that's not enough. We also want to see that there's a practical outcome of our work. Our incubator program wants to serve as a bridge between medical researchers and doctors trying to discover new cures for diseases, and materials scientists and engineers who come up with new theories or compounds. It strives to break the disciplinary barriers and shorten the time and pathway from laboratory discoveries to applications and clinical trials."

Members of the Nano Incubator Program

Guangzhao Mao
Chemical Engineering
Expertise: Directed self assembly, crystallization, polymer thin films and nanoparticles, AFM imaging and force measurements

Rangaramanujam Kannan
Chemical Engineering
Expertise: Dendrimer‐drug conjugation, nanodevice design and characterization, in vivo and tissue level evaluation of efficacy, clinical translation

Stephanie L. Brock
Chemistry
Expertise: Synthesis, properties and applications of metal pnictide and chalcogenide extended solids and nanomaterials, solgel nanoparticle assembly, hybrid materials

Mark Cheng
Electrical Engineering
Expertise: Design, integration and testing of nanosystems using lithography‐based nanofabrication, graphene‐based nanomaterials for biosensing and NEMS

Diane Chugani
Pediatrics/Radiology/Pharmacology
Expertise: PET imaging, autism, translational imaging research

Michael Diamond
Obstetrics/Gynecology
Expertise: Post‐operative adhesions, molecular biology, and immunopathology, clinical translation

Alan Dombkowski
Pediatrics/Clinical Pharmacology
Expertise: Genomics and proteomics, toxicology

Harry Goshgarian
Anatomy/Cell Biology
Expertise: Functional‐recovery following spinal cord injury, and neuroscience

Peter Hoffmann
Physics
Expertise: Studies of interatomic/intermolecular forces using AFM; forces, currents, and charges in nanostructures, forces associated with liquid ordering and bonding in biological molecules, development of AFM/STM

Yinlun Huang
Chemical Engineering
Expertise: Multiscale complex systems, integrated material, product, and process design and manufacturing, computational multifunctional nanomaterial development

Alan Hudson
Immunology/Microbiology
Expertise: Molecular biology/molecular genetics of the obligate intracellular bacterial pathogen Chlamydia trachomatis

Sujatha Kannan
Pediatrics
Expertise: PET imaging, nanotherapeutics imaging in cerebral palsy, clinical translation

Gavin Lawes
Physics
Expertise: Materials characterization, magnetic nanoparticles, low temperature measurements

Ray Novak
Clinical Pharmacology/Pediatrics
Expertise: Genomics and proteomics, toxicology

David Oupicky
Pharmaceutical Sciences
Expertise: Stimuli‐responsive, nano-sized polymer-based systems for delivery of drugs and genes, redox‐, pH‐, and temperature responsive delivery systems

Ghassan Saed
Obstetrics/Gynecology
Expertise: Post‐operative adhesions, molecular biology

Fazlul Sarkar
Pharmacology/Karmanos Cancer Institute
Expertise: Cancer therapy, Pancreatic and breast cancer

Anthony Shields
Internal Medicine/Karmanos Cancer Institute
Expertise: PET imaging in cancer, therapeutics development

Judith Whittum‐Hudson
Immunology/Microbiology
Expertise: Immunopathogenesis of infectious diseases and anti‐chlamydial vaccine development

Yong Xu
Electrical Engineering
Expertise: MEMS, biomedical electronics, nanotechnology