Remote-controlled implantable device delivers HIV prevention drug July 13th, 2016 A Houston Methodist research team received a nearly $4 million grant to test a transcutaneously refillable implant that administers pre-exposure prophylaxis drugs to subjects at risk of HIV-exposure. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded Alessandro Grattoni, Ph.D., the multi-million dollar grant over five years to enhance the nanochannel delivery system (nDS), which provides sustained and constant release of drugs without the use of pumps, valves or a power supply. Grattoni, chair of the Department of Nanomedicine at Houston Methodist Research Institute, leads the project which has already shown in pilot studies that the device successfully released …

Could space research offer new hope for cancer patients? The nano age and space age have converged in a partnership that could usher in a new era of hope for cancer patients. Like the advent of modern anesthesia and its impact on surgical research in the 19th century, a major research project aboard the International Space Station for the newly-created Houston Methodist Center of Space NanoMedicine could deliver major results. “We are on the verge of something big,” Alessandro Grattoni, director of the Houston Methodist Center of Space Nanomedicine, told FoxNews.com. “It could change the way chemotherapy is delivered.” A concept developed by Grattoni involves a reloadable implant, inserted under …

CENTER OF SPACE NANOMEDICINE TO WORK WITH CASIS ON RESEARCH ABOARD INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION The Houston Methodist Research Institute’s newly created Center of Space Nanomedicine is working with the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to send eight experiments to the International Space Station (ISS) over the next five years. The first experiment launched on April 8. Led by Alessandro Grattoni, Ph.D., the Houston Methodist center focuses on the development and testing of technologies in four areas – diagnostic and therapeutic biomedical devices for precision medicine, nanotherapeutics for targeted drug delivery, regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. A microgravity experiment to study the diffusion of drug-like particles was …

HOUSTON METHODIST AND NASA LAUNCHING UNIQUE NANOMEDICINE EXPERIMENT Alessandro Grattoni and a couple colleagues from the Houston Methodist Research Institute were stationed at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida last year for the launch of the SpaceX CRS-7 rocket to the International Space Station. Along with equipment and supplies for the astronauts, the rocket was supposed to deliver several scientific experiments, including one Grattoni and his team spent five years perfecting: a study of how drug-like particles disperse through 100 tiny channels etched in a dime-sized microchip. Such knowledge would go a long way toward developing a more efficient way to deliver medicine into the human body. [READ …