Cambridge’s Aura Biosciences pioneers the new science of nanomedicines with nanosmart particles January 25, 2010

Cambridge’s Aura Biosciences pioneers the new science of nanomedicines with nanosmart particles

Elisabeth de los Pinos is a molecular biologist and founder and President of Aura Biosciences, a startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In late 2007, the Barcelona native learned that a cancer research institute in Germany had created a nanoparticle with dimensions that would allow it to pass easily through blood vessels (one nanomater equals a billionth of a meter). And because nanoparticles are multifunctional, she figured they would be the perfect vehicle to carry a homing device, a technology she then located at a British research center.

De los Pinos got exclusive licenses for both technologies and then went to work. She and her team genetically modified the nanoparticle by adding a targeting peptide to it. The result was a structure that can protect, target, and deliver the drug inside it. If the drug can be restricted to the cancer site, oncologists will be able to up the dosage without inflicting the damage elsewhere. higher doses mean higher efficacy.

Anticancer nanomedicines are very hot. The hope is that this technology will provide drugs with the ability to simultanteously treat, target and be monitored in the body.

De los Pinos, who has trademarked her new technology as nanosmart particles, is part of a cadre of nanoentrepreneurs, many of whom have found particles as potential delivery vehicles but are not necessarily using new medicines. Alot is currently known about the good and bad effects of approved drugs. If a drug is effective and widely used and there is a way to make it more effective, it makes sense to promote grater effectiveness in the drug’s employment. The target is well known; It is the aiming of the drugs that is now improving.