Nano Gets ORC Status

SOP’s Center for Nanomedicine and Cellular Delivery gets ORC status

By Randy Fillmore
February 7, 2007

The School of Pharmacy Center for Nanomedicine and Cellular Delivery (CNCD), established in March 2005, has just been granted the status of an Organized Research Center (ORC) on the UMB campus. The CNCD, which focuses on designing and developing revolutionary nanosystems and devices to treat disease, is the first research center in the School of Pharmacy to be designated as an ORC.

The ORC designation moves the CNCD from a departmental center to a campus-wide center. The new status recognizes and helps to further facilitate the multidisciplinary nature of Center members’ research, which covers material design and fabrication, cellular and biological evaluation and translational research.

“Centers designated as Organized Research Centers reflect campus-wide collaboration at its best,” said University of Maryland Baltimore President David J. Ramsay, DM, DPhil. “As an ORC, the Center will be that much more effective in bringing innovations in nanomedicine and cellular delivery from bench to bedside.”

The Center joins other UMB ORCs in the School of Medicine, such as the Center for Health Policy and Health Services Research, the Center for Integrative Medicine, the Mucosal Biology Research Center, the Center for Vaccine Development and the Center on Persistent Pain in the Dental School.

“I’m delighted that President Ramsey has officially established the CNCD as an Organized Research Center, the first such center in the School of Pharmacy,” said Dean David Knapp, PhD. “During the Center’s relatively short history, sustained, meaningful collaborations have been established among the Schools of Pharmacy, Medicine, Dentistry, and Law at UMB, the Colleges of Engineering and Life Sciences at UMCP and investigators at UMBI.”

Dean Knapp attributed the Center’s success in large part to the “enthusiasm and commitment to nanomedicine research on our campus” by Center Director Hamid Ghandehari, PhD, his chair, Dr. Natalie Eddington, and colleagues in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences.

“Support from the State of Maryland and the strength of nanotechnology in the University of Maryland system ensures that we will become one of the premier institutes in the country focusing on nanomedicine design and development,” said Eddington, PhD, chair of the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences. “The ORC designation represents a great opportunity.”

Ghandehari agrees with Eddington’s assessment regarding the ORC advantage.
“As an ORC, we can formalize and strengthen our existing interactions and strategically position UMB to become the premier institution for nanomedicine research at the local, national and international levels,” said Ghandhari. “We are very pleased to receive ORC status.”

The Center for Nanomedicine and Cellular Delivery is comprised of 26 members from several departments and spans three campuses – UMB, UMBI and College Park. The Center’s receiving ORC status is the most recent of its successes that have included hosting the Third International Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery Symposium in 2005 and receiving six major grants in 2006. The ORC’s first activities will include participation in collaborative projects funded by the Maryland Nanobiotech Initiative and the organization of the first Nanomedicine Research Day to be held at the UMB campus March 23rd, 2007.