The biggest discoveries often come from the smallest beginnings.

A team of physicists at Wake Forest University is using nanotechnology, or the manipulation of materials on a very small scale, to create innovative new drug-discovery tools.

Through a very unconventional business model, both the technology development effort and commercialization plan are a collaborative effort of Wake Forest University and NanoMedica, a biomedical nanotechnology company based in Winston-Salem. Unlike many university-industry collaborations, Wake Forest faculty and staff are integrally involved in commercially-directed business decisions of the company.

The technical direction of the drug discovery program is heavily influenced by a key member of the technical staff, Jason Gagliano, who is both a lead researcher and biology graduate student at Wake Forest.

“He’s been absolutely instrumental in the development of the technology and the work between Nanomedica and Wake Forest,” said NanoMedica President and CEO Roger Cubicciotti. “He’s also been essential to developing collaborations and his personality and insight get people excited about working with us.”

In June, Wake Forest and NanoMedica received a two-year, $160,000 Collaborative Funding Grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center to assist in getting their “lab-on-bead” technology to market.

Last month, the team received a $700,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to commercialize the technology.

Technology has exciting implications

The Wake-NanoMedica team has developed a technology known as “Next-Gen Lab-on-Bead.” It is a drug-discovery tool that uses the latest next-generation genetic sequencing technologies. Incorporating the advantages of nanotechnology in molecular discovery allows the identification of new drug candidates and diagnostic reagents to be faster and more efficient.

“As far as we know, this is the first time anyone has taken next-gen sequencing and merged it with drug discovery,” said Gagliano about the lab-on-bead technology.

The “lab-on-bead” refers to a small, one square inch chip similar to a computer chip. In the center, millions of wells are populated by microscopic beads. The researchers then attach potential drug molecules to these beads, allowing them to “probe millions of drug compounds in one fell swoop,” according to Gagliano.

Scientists would be able to take a protein marker for which they want to find a potential treatment and use the lab-on-bead technology to test millions of possibilities at once. This eliminates the trial and error process that used to take scientists months, if not years, to complete.

The ultimate goal of this technology, Gagliano said, is to “try to discover new cancer drugs.” The technology could also potentially be used to determine if a biopsy sample were cancerous faster and more efficiently than current methods.

Being the first to do anything, though, means there is no example to follow. “Because this technology and application is so novel, there are several hurdles that can be quite challenging,” said Gagliano. But the team certainly has great motivation for success.

According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, next-generation genetic sequencing, the same kind used by the Wake-NanoMedica team, is expected to boom over the next five years. As researchers explore drug-discovery and diagnostic applications for this technology, it will become one of the fastest-growing markets in the biomedical industry, according to a recent report by the firm.

Grant funding key to success

The team’s recent NIH grant will allow them to explore the next phase of this technology and prepare it for commercial use.

As with any goal, “we need money in order to pursue it,” Gagliano said. The NIH grant has “allowed us to have our own next-gen sequencer.” Gagliano described this machine as “dream” piece of equipment, which perfectly suits the team’s needs.

“We had thought about this technology before it hit the scene,” Gagliano said. In the years before this equipment was available, the Wake-NanoMedica team would discuss what kind of equipment would handle all their needs and came to the realization that it didn’t exist at that point.

When the next-gen sequencer became available, the team knew they needed the equipment to realize their vision, so they applied for the NIH grant and were thrilled to learn they had been awarded the grant last month.

“The grant allowed for equipment and personnel,” Gagliano said, adding that it helped “put the idea to work.”

“The value of the grant is not simply money,” Cubicciotti explained. “It demonstrates that the scientific community is beginning to accept what we’re doing scientifically and commercially.”

A unique collaboration

A big component in successfully creating the technology, Gagliano said, was a “great collaboration between NanoMedica and Wake Forest.”

Wake Forest University’s renowned physics and biophysics departments supplied the team of researchers, while NanoMedica helped focus this research into a specific, medical-based project.

This is a “pretty unique collaboration between a university and private, commercial interest,” said Gagliano. It allows us to “all work together as a team to discover something new.”

“It goes beyond a collaboration,” Cubicciotti said. “It is a genuine partnership.”

Typically, companies dictate the direction of the research team, but that is not the case in this partnership, he explained. Cubicciotti described Gagliano as a “genuine team member” and “very influential in business decisions.”

Once he completes his Ph.D., Gagliano plans to stay on with NanoMedica, where he will run this project and other sequencing projects. Some of these other projects include forensic applications and personalized medicine.

(C) NCBiotech Center