Nanopharma Technologies, Inc., a University of South Florida drug development group and spin-off enterprise founded in 2003 by USF chemistry professor, Edward Turos, and his colleague, Dr Seyoung Jang, president and CEO, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for its continuing research on new antibacterial nanoparticles. The phase II grant, totaling nearly five hundred thousand dollars, follows a $100K phase I grant the group received two years ago from the NSF. The most recent grant will further fund exploratory studies evaluating the effectiveness of nanoparticle antibiotics aimed at curing cure drug-resistant infections caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

“MRSA infections are already a huge problem in hospitals around the world,” said Nanopharma  president Seyoung Jang. “Unfortunately, the situation continues to get worse, as many of the antibiotics used to treat these types of infections steadily lose their punch. We are trying to develop a way to recover the effectiveness of common antibiotics such as penicillin using the most recent advances in nanotechnology.”

The USF-Nanopharma group, already working with other federal and pharmaceutical labs and within the environment of USF to develop this area of nanotechnology, is also dedicated to training undergraduate and graduate students in cutting-edge research at the nanotechnology and infectious diseases interface.

“This study, carried out jointly between Nanopharma and USF, will allow us test whether our nanoparticle technology can be successfully applied to the treatment of MRSA infections, and also provide essential new data on the use of the nanoparticles as a drug delivery platform,” said Turos, a co-investigator on the grant. “Nanoparticle-based delivery of antibiotic drugs is still a largely unexplored area, and we need to learn a great deal about how they may work against infectious diseases. There are currently no existing technologies like this in the anti-infectives area, and we have an opportunity to develop commercial applications of this research that may have extremely important benefits for society.”

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