REM Therapeutic Delivery Innovation Initiative
There is an emerging trend in drug delivery systems due to inherent limitations of conventional oral drug delivery systems, such as biopharmaceutical solubility and intestinal permeability. A solution to resolve this potential challenge is to develop translational drug delivery systems that are capable of targeted delivery of therapeutic agents and controlled drug release in a non-invasive manner.
Market data suggest pharmaceutical innovation is the driving force in the shift from conventional drugs, to a translational delivery system. Novel systems, capable of delivering drugs in therapeutic concentration to the target site in a controlled manner for enhanced efficacy with fewer side effects, have opened a new direction in spurring innovative activity.
To test therapeutic alternatives of conventional methods, our consortium of universities and research institutions will work to develop less-invasive or non-invasive routes for delivery systems that affect clinical outcomes in different disease conditions. The research will be focused on the following means to better understand translational drug delivery:
- Designing and developing novel drug delivery systems, such as devices for drug delivery and drug/device combination products and image-guided drug therapy
- Preclinical and clinical data related to drug delivery systems using big data tool and omics approaches
- Improving drug distribution, pharmacokinetics, clearance, with drug delivery systems compared to traditional dosing
- Short-term and long-term biocompatibility of drug delivery systems and host responses
- Biomaterials with growth factors for stem-cell differentiation in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering
REM’s Vision
Accelerate therapeutic delivery innovation and translation to treat disease. REM’s initiative will achieve this goal, which will position Georgia as a leading innovation hub in this intellectual space and benefit Georgia’s knowledge economy, by fostering interdisciplinary and multi-institutional collaborations and supporting research ranging from fundamental to translational to positively impact human health.
Opportunities for institution involvement
- Synergy grants to support investigators planning multi-institutional grants
- Annual retreat to bring investigators together from the three participating institutions
- Workshops to highlight new technologies and model systems available across institutions
Existing Centers at Emory that could help support this initiative
- Emory Chemical Biology Discovery Center
- Emory Vaccine Center
- Existing Centers at UGA that could help support this initiative
- Complex Carbohydrate Research Center
- Center for Drug Discovery
- Center for Molecular Medicine
- Regenerative Bioscience Center (RBC)
- Nanoscale Science and Engineering Center (NanoSEC)
- Center for Vaccines and Immunology
Existing Centers at GA Tech that could help support this initiative
- Center for Immunoengineering
- Center for Drug Design Development and Delivery
- Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies/Marcus Center for Therapeutic Cell Manufacturing and Characterization
- The Center for Pharmaceutical Development (CPD)
- Integrated Cancer Research Center (ICRC)
- Faculty associated with the computational biology and bioinformatics interdisciplinary graduate program
