Nanotechnology and biotechnology experts from around the globe gathered in-person and virtually at this year’s Global Nanobiotechnology Conference (GNC), hosted April 22 to 24 by USF’s NANO and Engineering Biology student organizations and the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy.

Nearly 170 attendees representing researchers from across the United States, as well as a global reach to India, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Colombia, registered for this conference’s second annual event, all benefiting from the opportunity to network and foster scientific and research collaborations. Poster presentations and oral presentations at the event highlighted current work being done in the fields of nano-technology and biotechnology.

USF President Rhea Law urged attendees to continue their life-saving work.

“I’m proud that the University of South Florida is hosting such a critically important event –given the global devastation and calamity that COVID-19 has caused in the last two years,” said USF President Rhea Law in her remarks to conference attendees. “But this has made the work you do all the more vital. There is a dire need to continue innovating nano-biotech-based approaches to manage the pandemic. A global crisis like this one requires intensive collaboration and interdisciplinary research, uniting the most creative minds in tackling it. And that is precisely what this conference helps to accomplish–bringing together scientists from medicine to physics, material science, molecular biology, and biomedical engineering to find new solutions to COVID and other threats to humankind.”

Charles Lockwood, MD, MHCM, senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, also share a message of support.

“The University of South Florida takes great pride in its status as a global research university and this conference offers a great opportunity to continue building a worldwide network of faculty, scientists and industry partners dedicated to innovating nano-biotech research,” Dr. Lockwood said. “This weekend you will hear from some of the world’s top experts discussing advancements in nanotechnology, and the implication for improving health care across the globe.”

This year’s conference was chaired by Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, MBA, professor and associate dean of the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy. The annual event is motivated by the need for developing nanobiotechnologies for current COVID-19 pandemic and such pandemics in the future.

The interdisciplinary nature of nanobiotechnology brings together scientists from medicine, physics, material science, molecular biology, and biomedical engineering, among other disciplines, to find solutions for challenging problems that humankind is facing with transdisciplinary approaches. The role of nanotechnology has been clearly illustrated in the novel methods of diagnosis, vaccines, and treatments, which have been developed against COVID-19.

USF recently held a big meeting about exploring the very small.

In November, the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy hosted the 12^th annual NanoFlorida International Conference on the USF campus.  The three-day conference, which included keynote addresses by USF President Steven Currall and Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, was centered around future developments in the field of nanotechnology.

Participants pose for a group photo during the NanoFlorida International Conference.

“Nanotechnology is to work in the smallest scale possible, called nanoscale,” explained USF Health professor Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, director of the Center for Education and Research in Nanobioengineering and conference chair of the International Academy of Nanotechnology.

For comparison, one nanometer is one-millionth the diameter of single strand of human hair, Dr. Mohapatra said.

USF President Steven Currall gave a keynote address during the NanoFlorida International Conference in the Marshall Center on USF campus.

Nanotechnology is being studied in a wide range of sciences, including chemistry, engineering and medicine. The technology is already being used in many industries and products people use every day. For example, nanotechnology has helped reduce the size of cell phones from the unwieldy devices of yesteryear to the advanced computers that now fit in your pocket.

But it’s not just consumer goods where nanotechnology is making a difference. USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy is looking at how the technology can help better deliver medication to patients.

“The whole notion of pharmaceutical nanotechnology is to take a molecule and make it even smaller so we can deliver (medicines) into parts of the body that normally we can’t get into,” said Kevin Sneed, PharmD, FNAP, FNPHA. Dr. Sneed is senior associate vice president, USF Health and dean of the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy.

Kevin Sneed, PharmD, FNAP, FNPHA, talks to dignitaries during the NanoFlorida International Conference. Dr. Sneed is senior associate vice president, USF Health and dean of the USF Health Taneja College of Pharmacy.

For instance, researchers are studying how nanotechnology can assist the treatment of brain cancers and brain disorders.

“Lots of medications cannot get into the brain when taken orally or otherwise,” Dr. Sneed said, “By making them smaller, now we can transport them into the brain.”

The Taneja College of Pharmacy is embracing pharmaceutical nanotechnology by offering a master’s in science degree in pharmaceutical nanotechnology – the first such degree in the state of Florida.

“We had an opportunity to build a pharmaceutical or drug delivery program,” Dr. Sneed said. “Nanotechnology was very futuristic, and we wanted to be a very futuristic, very innovative, very transformative pharmacy program.”

About 50 students are currently enrolled in the pharmaceutical nanotechnology degree program.

Shyam Mohapatra, Distinguished USF Health Professor, Director of Center for Education and Research in Nanobioengineering in the Morsani College of Medicine and Associate Dean Graduate Program in the Tanjea College of Pharmacy and Conference Chair of the International Academy of Nanotechnology, opens the NanoFlorida International Conference.

During the NanoFlorida International Conference, participants attended a number of plenary sessions discussing advances in nanotechnology and its use, and students from USF and other major colleges presented 138 research posters for judging.

Sonali Kannaujia (left) and Liguan Li, a graduate student and a PhD candidate both studying electrical engineering, look at their poster presentation before the start of judging during the NanoFlorida International Conference. The USF students created a Wireless Interrogated MEMS Capacitive Intraocular Pressure Sensors to help with the treatment of Glaucoma.

The NanoFlorida International Conference is organized by the Florida Association for Nanotechnology, a society composed of basic and translational nano-bio technologists who use a variety of nanoscale sciences and technologies to better understand the way the nano-bio systems function.

Video, photos and article by Allison Long, USF Health Communications & Marketing

Three of five leading University of South Florida researchers named to the new class of Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science are from USF Health.

John Adams, PhD; Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM; and  Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, MBA, have been awarded the distinction of Fellow at AAAS, the world’s largest and one of its most prestigious scientific societies.

With this year’s new Fellows class, USF again ranks fourth among all organizations worldwide, tied with University of Florida, in the designation of new AAAS Fellows, and joining Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, University of Texas at Austin, and University of Wisconsin-Madison. USF and UF lead Florida universities in new AAAS Fellows selection.

From left: John Adams, PhD; Charles J. Lockwood, MD, MHCM; and Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, MBA

Election as an AAAS fellow is an honor bestowed upon AAAS members by their peers.

Dr. John Adams, elected AAAS Fellow in the the association’s Biological Sciences Section, was cited for pioneering efforts and distinguished contributions in fundamental and translational malaria research, particularly discoveries to improve antimalarial drugs and vaccines.  Dr. Adams is a Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Global Health, College of Public Health, and holds joint appointments in the Department of Molecular Medicine and the Division of Infectious Disease & International Medicine, Morsani College of Medicine. He has dedicated his career to finding solutions for malaria, one of the leading causes of death and disease globally.

Dr. Charles Lockwood, elected AAAS Fellow in the Medical Sciences Section, was cited for distinguished contributions to reproductive science particularly discovery of the first biochemical marker of preterm birth, fetal fibronectin, and the molecular mechanisms underlying uterine hemostasis. Dr. Lockwood is senior vice president for USF Health and dean of the Morsani College of Medicine, and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and public health at USF. An internationally recognized health care and research leader, Dr. Lockwood is the recipient of multiple research grant awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the March of Dimes and other foundations. His clinical interests include prevention of recurrent pregnancy loss, preterm delivery and maternal thrombosis, and he maintains an active laboratory at USF Health dedicated to research in these areas.

Dr. Shyam Mohapatra, elected AAAS Fellow in the Pharmaceutical Sciences Section, was cited for outstanding contributions in the field of pharmaceutical and health sciences, particularly for pioneering achievements in advancing biomedical nanotechnology for inflammatory diseases. Dr. Mohapatra is a Distinguished USF Health Professor; director of Translational Medicine; associate dean of graduate programs and professor in the College of Pharmacy; Distinguished Professor in the Institute for Advanced Discovery & Innovation; and a Department of Veteran Affairs Research Career Scientist at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.   He founded the USF Center for Research & Education in Nanobioengineering in 2010, and has served as center director since then. His research on the immunobiology of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), atrial natriuretic peptide signaling pathways, and nanoparticle-mediated gene/drug delivery has helped guide the fields of inflammation, immunology, infectious disease, biotherapeutics and translational medicine. He has also pioneered novel approaches for potential treatment of RSV, allergies, asthma, traumatic brain injury and cancers.

Spanning medicine, public health, and technology research, the new group of five USF Fellows are among some of the university’s most accomplished faculty members, representing decades of scientific accomplishments and more than 50 patented technologies.

Read full story…

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Dr. Shyam Mohapatra, University of South Florida Distinguished Health Professor amd VA career research scientist, was one of six exceptional inventors inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame at the organization’s inaugural induction ceremony and gala on Sept. 10 in Tampa.  Dr. Mohapatra was recognized for his pioneering innovations in the field of applied biomedical nanotechnology.

The Hall of Fame, founded last year at USF, showcases the groundbreaking innovations of Florida scientists and inventors.

These six inventors represent some 1,300 patents for their work and are the charter group  inducted in the new Florida Inventors Hall of Fame.

More …

A Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s and VA Hospital/University of South Florida team created the antiviral therapy, which harnesses the power of stapled peptide and nanoparticle technologies to thwart the respiratory virus

Boston, MA, and Tampa, FL (April, 17, 2014) — New therapies are needed to prevent and treat respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – a potentially lethal respiratory infection that can severely affect infants, young children and the elderly.

Despite a wide range of anti-RSV efforts, there are no vaccines or drugs on the market to effectively prevent or treat the infection.

Now researchers at the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center and Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA, and the James A. Haley VA Hospital and the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa, FL, have developed novel double-stapled peptides that inhibit RSV in cells and in mice. The team also showed that this peptide’s capacity to block infection was significantly boosted when delivered to the lungs by miniscule, biodegradable particles known as nanoparticles.

The team’s findings are reported online today in The Journal of Clinical Investigation. 

Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, leads the VA/University of South Florida research team with expertise in nanoparticle technology. He holds a test tube of nanoparticle solution.

RSV employs a fusion protein with a helical structure to enable the virus to bind to and penetrate epithelial cells lining the nose and lungs.

The Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s/Harvard laboratory led by co-senior author Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, used their chemical strategy known as hydrocarbon stapling to make “double-stapled” RSV peptides. Stapling helps the peptides retain their natural helical shape and resist degradation by the body’s enzymes while disrupting the fusion process needed for RSV to infect host cells.

The VA/USF group led by co-senior author Shyam Mohapatra, PhD, tested these double-stapled peptides, alone and in combination with propriety nanoparticles, in mice to demonstrate significant inhibition of RSV infection.

“This is an exciting advance in the fight against respiratory syncytial virus infection,” said Dr. Mohapatra, director of the USF Nanomedicine Research Center and the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine’s Division of Translational Medicine, and a research career scientist at James A. Haley VA Hospital.

“We found that double-stapled peptide interference targeting the virus fusion protein can be administered in the form of a nasal drop or spray.  The treatment suppressed viral entry and reproduction, including spread from nose to lungs, providing substantial protection from infection when administered several days before viral exposure.”

“Designing therapeutic peptides based on a virus’ very own fusion apparatus was previously exploited to block HIV-1 infection, but this class of drugs was severely limited by the pharmacologic liabilities of peptides in general, including loss of bioactive structure and rapid digestion in the body,” said Dr. Walensky, associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, pediatric hematologist/oncologist at Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s and principal investigator in Dana-Farber’s Linde Program in Cancer Chemical Biology.

“Peptide stapling restores the natural helical shape, which also inhibits proteolysis, providing a new opportunity to take advantage of a well-validated mechanism of action to thwart viruses like RSV that otherwise lack drugs for preventing or treating infection.”

Loren Walensky, MD, PhD, leads the Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s/Harvard laboratory with expertise in stapled peptide technology. The screen image shows the chemical structure of a stapled peptide, with the arrow pointing to the hydrocarbon staple (in yellow).

Dr. Mohapatra and his team developed nose drops containing the Walensky laboratory’s double-stapled peptides after combining them with TransGenex’s chitosan nanoparticles that stick to mucous-producing cells lining the lungs.

First, the researchers treated mice intranasally with stapled peptide nose drops, both before and during infection with RSV.  The treated mice showed significantly lower levels of virus in the nose and lungs, and less airway inflammation, compared to untreated mice.

Then, double-stapled peptides encapsulated in nanoparticles were delivered to the lungs via the trachea to test whether the combination could further increase the effectiveness of this experimental therapy.  The nanoparticle preparation markedly improved delivery of the peptides to the lungs, and the combination worked better and longer in preventing RSV pneumonia than the double-stapled peptide alone.

The researchers say to the best of their knowledge this preclinical study is the first to combine peptide stapling and nanoparticle technologies to maximize the delivery, persistence, and effectiveness of an antiviral therapy.

RSV is the most common virus causing lung and airway infections in infants and young children. Most have had this infection by age 2, and it can be especially serious, even deadly, in high-risk groups, such as babies born prematurely and those whose immune systems do not work well. The virus hospitalizes thousands of infants each year for pneumonia or brochiolitis and has been associated with a significantly greater risk of developing asthma later in life.  The elderly are also at high risk of complications from RSV infection.

“This is a new way forward in the development of strategies to prevent RSV infection,” said Terrence Dermody, MD, the Dorothy Overall Wells professor of pediatrics and director of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who was not involved with the research. “The authors are to be complimented on the clever design, interdisciplinary approach and extension from cell-culture experiments to animal studies. I am particularly excited about the possible application of this technology to other viruses.”

The study was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health, Research Career Scientist and VA Merit Review Awards from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award.

Article citation:
Gregory H. Bird, Sandhya Boyapalle,Terianne Wong, Kwadwo Opoku-Nsiah, Raminder Bedi, W. Christian Crannell, Alisa F. Perry, Huy Nguyen, Vivianna Sampayo,  Ankita Devareddy, Subhra Mohapatra,  Shyam S. Mohapatra and Loren D. Walensky,  “Mucousal delivery of a double-stapled RSV peptide prevents nasopulmonary infection,”   Journal of Clinical Investigation, 2014;124(5): doi:10.1172/JCI71856.

About Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center

Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center brings together two internationally known research and teaching institutions that have provided comprehensive care for pediatric oncology and hematology patients since 1947.  The Harvard Medical School affiliates share a clinical staff that delivers inpatient care at Boston Children’s Hospital and outpatient care at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute’s Jimmy Fund Clinic. Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s brings the results of its pioneering research and clinical trials to patients’ bedsides through five  clinical centers: the Blood Disorders Center, the Brain Tumor Center, the Hematologic Malignancies Center, the Solid Tumors Center, and the Stem Cell Transplant Center.

About USF Health

USF Health’s mission is to envision and implement the future of health. It is the partnership of the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine, the College of Nursing, the College of Public Health, the College of Pharmacy, the School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences; and the USF Physician’s Group. The University of South Florida is a Top 50 research university in total research expenditures among both public and private institutions nationwide, according to the National Science Foundation. For more information, visit www.health.usf.edu

Media contacts:
Anne DeLotto Baier, USF Health Communications, University of South Florida
(813) 974-3303 or abaier@health.usf.edu

Irene Sege, Dana-Farber/Boston Children’s Cancer and Blood Disorders Center
617-919-7379 or irene.sege@childrens.harvard.edu