The focus of the Highly Potent Nanotherapeutics program is two-fold: (1) examine the potential of nanotechnology towards bringing a wider range of chemotherapeutic drugs that would otherwise fail as anti-cancer agents into potential usefulness as anti-cancer agents by improving their bioavailability, solubility, pharmacokinetics, or therapeutic ratio;and, (2) identify and evaluate the clinical potential of candidate targeted nanotherapeutics in the post-optimization phase of the development cycle for efficacy and toxicity testing from within nanotechnology focused institutions and pharmaceutical and biotechnology communities to enable filing an Investigational New Drug (IND) applications with the US-FDA. Under objective (1) contracts have been awarded to Aphios Corporation (www.aphios.com/), Bend Research (www.bendres.com/), Nanotherapeutics, Inc. (www.nanotherapeutics.com/), and Texas A&M University (www.chem.tamu.edu/rgroup/simanek/). Under objective (2) contracts have been awarded to BIND Biosciences (www.bindbio.com/), Nanospectra Biosciences (www.nanospectra.com/) and PDS Biotechnology (www.pdsbiotech.com/).
