From targeted drug delivery mechanisms to supersensitive imaging techniques, nanotechnology holds many promises for medicine. But advances taking place in the research lab will help few patients without successful translation into clinical and commercial environments, said Srinivas Sridhar, Distinguished Professor of Physics and director the Nanomedicine IGERT Center, an Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship jointly funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Cancer Institute.
Since its inception in 2005, the center has sought to establish educational and research leadership in the fields of nanomedicine and nanobiology, according to Sridhar, but only recently has it begun to expand into the final frontier: translation. National funding agencies have sounded the call for keeping the research eye on commercialization, he said, but being successful, he explained, “requires an innovation ecosystem. It’s not just scientists and engineers; you’ve got to have many others, like regulators, CEOs, entrepreneurs, government officials, and venture capitalists.”
