Home Mission Executive Committee Membership of the Center Goals Rationale

Mission

The Center's cross-disciplinary research will achieve novel materials and innovative therapeutic strategies to treat indications with few effective treatment options such as cancer, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, lung disease, and drug abuse. The Center intends to transform basic science research in RNA nanotechnology and nanomedicine through innovative approaches to disease treatment and diagnostics, creating the next generation scientific workforce and launching small agile spin-off companies to pursue Center breakthroughs. The mission is well aligned with the College of Pharmacy's strategic plans to enhance visibility, to continue to build on drug discovery research, and to move new drugs to the clinic.

Executive Committee

Rajgopal Govindarajan Professor Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology College of Pharmacy	Peter Shields Deputy Director of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center College of Medicine	Jack Yalowich Professor Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology College of Pharmacy

Center Administrators:

Daniel Binzel Center Manager College of Pharmacy

Membership of the Center

Full members:

Federica Accornero Professor College of Medicine Nationwide Children's Hospital	Gunjan Agarwal Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	Irina Artsimovitch Professor Department of Microbiology	Xue-Feng Bai Professor College of Medicine	Sharyn Baker Gertrude Parker Heer Chair in Cancer Research Professor and Chair Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology College of Pharmacy	Charles Bell Associate Professor College of Medicine
Dennis Bong Professor Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry	Cynthia Carnes Senior Associate Vice President for Research Operations Professor of Outcomes and Translational Science College of Pharmacy	William Carson Vice Chair, Promotion and Tenure John B. and Jane T. McCoy Chair in Cancer Research Associate Director, Clinical Research College of Medicine	Carlos Castro The Ralph W. Kurtz Chair in Mechanical Engineering, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering	Xiaolin Cheng Professor College of Pharmacy	Emanuele Cocucci Assistant Professor College of Pharmacy
Carlo Croce John W. Wolfe Chair in Human Cancer Genetics Profesor College of Medicine	Richard Fishel Professor College of Medicine	Sylvan G. Frank Faculty Emeritus College of Pharmacy	Rajgopal Govindarajan Professor College of Pharmacy	Deliang Guo Professor College of Medicine	Peixuan Guo Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Professor & Director of Center for RNA Nanobiotechnology and Nanomedicine College of Pharmacy & College of Medicine
Renzhi Han Professor College of Medicine	Richard Lease Assistant Professor of Teaching Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry	Guoqiang Li Associate Professor Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Science	Wu Lu Professor College of Engineering	Henry J. Mann Professor and Dean College of Pharmacy
Wayne Miles Associate Professor College of Medicine	Peter Mohler Executive Vice President for Research, Innovation and Knowledge Vice President of Research, The Ohio State University Chief Scientific Officer, The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and Ohio State College of Medicine Wexner Medical Center	Lalit Sehgal Assistant Professor Division of Hematology College of Medicine	Peter Shields Deputy Director of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center College of Medicine	Dan Shu Research Associate Professor College of Pharmacy	Qi-En Wang Associate Professor College of Medicine
Noah Weisleder Professor Director of Graduate Studies College of Medicine	Jack Yalowich Professor Division of Pharmaceutics and Pharmacology College of Pharmacy	Junran Zhang Professor Department of Radiation Oncology, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center	Yutong Zhao Professor Dept. of Physiology and Cell Biology, College of Medicine	Dongping Zhong Robert Smith Professor of Physics Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry	Hua Zhu Professor Department of Surgery, OSU Wexner Medical Center

Goals

Long term goals:

1. Engage in fundamental research or applied research to create intellectual properties, high impact publications, and valuable patents.
2. Successfully pursue the translation of fundamental research from the lab bench to the clinic and the market, using the created intellectual property to launch spin-off companies and attract high technology companies to the region.
3. Generate royalty income to continue growth of the Center.
4. Secure extramural funding to continue to support the Center's research efforts and allow the foundation to successfully compete for major extramural funding.

Short term goals:

Rationale

Nanobiotechnology seeks to exploit recent advances in nanotechnology to address critical needs in medicine and the biological sciences. In particular, RNA nanotechnology has demonstrated significant potentials for developing RNA nanoparticles for in vivo drug delivery. To advance the field and international collaboration, these complex, large-scale scientific opportunities require cutting-edge interdisciplinary work by teams of researchers drawn from multiple disciplines and international collaboration. Important examples include, but are not limited to, more effective therapies for cancer, obesity, cardiovascular system, infectious disease, drug abuse, drug resistant, innovative diagnostics, early detection of diseases, and the use of RNA as anion polymer for material science, imaging reagents, optical equipments, and computer modules.

These opportunities can be seized by world-class research teams when the challenges of assembling and fielding interdisciplinary teams are successfully met. These challenges include connecting and integrating researchers in teams across many different disciplines; enabling communication between the different cultures of medicine, natural science and biomedical engineering; building relationships to establish the essential trust at the basis of all collaboration; and managing effectively without creating bureaucratic obstacles that slow activity. All of these call for innovative approaches.

Responding to the opportunity and addressing these challenges, the OSU Center of RNA Nanobiotechnology and Nanomedicine will be established as an innovative platform for a flexible and agile center providing unique contributions, functioning as a node linking many researchers across multiple networks and as a matrix from which to create both new interdisciplinary research collaborations and the next generation scientific workforce in nanoscience and technology. The center will leverage already established but dispersed OSU biomedical research efforts, using nanobiotechnology as a multidisciplinary focal point to integrate these efforts for maximum impact. The proposed Center will build upon effective collaborations located within the campus including the James Comprehensive Cancer Center, Center for RNA Biology, Center for Brain and Spinal Cord Repair, Center for Clinical and Translational Science, and Center for Retrovirus Research.

Application Procedure and membership qualifications

1. Full Membership: Tenured track or Tenured Faculties fulfilling at least two of the following four requirements: (a) have active federal/state grants; (b) have Pubmed publications during the last five years involving nanobiotechnology, such as nanoscale biomaterials, nanomedicine, nanobiomechanics, nanophotonics, single molecular imaging, etc; (c) currently have graduate and/or postdoctoral students; (d) demonstrating strong interest in nanobiotechnology or RNA nanobiotechnology as showed by active interaction with current center members.
2. Associate Membership: No specific requirements, but a strong interest to engage in nanobiotechnology research and nanomedicine involving RNA.
3. Institution membership:

Description of faculty involvement

Affiliate national or international institution membership