Nanomachines targeted for medical nanotechnology

The competition must be fierce to be selected by the U.S. National Institutes of Health as one of four National Network of Nanomedicine Development Centers. Based on both this year’s and last year’s medical nanotech funding results, it helps to focus on molecular machines:

2006
Georgia Tech: Nanomedicine Center for Nucleoprotein Machines
Purdue: Nanomotor Drug Delivery Center
UCLA: Center for Systemic Control of Cyto-Networks
UC/LBNL: Center for Optical Control of Biological Function

2005
Baylor: Center for Protein Folding Machinery
UIUC: National Center for Design of Biomimetic Nanoconductors
UCSF: Center for Engineering Cellular Control Systems
Columbia: NanoMedicine Center for Mechanical Biology

It’s clear: molecular machine systems are central to the future of medicine. Congratulations to the 2006 winners: Gang Bao, Peixuan Guo, Chih-Ming Ho, and Ehud Isacoff.—Christine