New Jersey Health Foundation awards $50,000 Innovation Grant to Rutgers University professor to advance therapeutic drug delivery

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Aug. 11, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- New Jersey Health Foundation has awarded a $50,000 Innovation Grant to Charles Roth, PhD, to advance the development of a more effective platform for systemic delivery of therapeutic biologics, announced James M. Golubieski, president.  

Dr. Roth is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.  He is working in close collaboration with David Devore, PhD, a visiting scientist in the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials at Rutgers and a co-inventor of the technology.

"Dr. Roth is working to make a difference in the lives of patients with recalcitrant diseases for which no effective clinical treatments are available," explained George F. Heinrich, M.D., vice chair and CEO of New Jersey Health Foundation. "We find his technology exciting and with great potential."

The uniquely designed biomimetic nanovectors provide a broadly effective platform for systemic delivery of therapeutic biologics including antisense DNA, siRNA and peptides for the treatment of metastatic cancers, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), chronic diseases and other infections.  The vector technology overcomes the barriers with current methods of delivering therapeutics such as biodegradation by nucleases, ineffective encapsulation of higher therapeutic payloads and poor tissue-specific targeting which opens the possibility of delivering new therapeutics to target previously undruggable diseases.

A US Patent (#8,962,757) was awarded to Rutgers University based on the technology invented by Drs. Roth and Devore.

"This $50,000 grant will allow us to determine whether the delivery of a vector with antisense molecules will be effective in reducing tumor growth in in vivo xenograft models," explained Dr. Roth.  "We are grateful to New Jersey Health Foundation for believing, as we do, that our technology has merit and will someday positively affect people around the world suffering from a variety of devastating illnesses."

Through this New Jersey Health Foundation program, Innovation Grants of up to $50,000 each are available to full-time faculty and personnel at Rutgers University and major research universities in New Jersey with which NJHF has a formal relationship— New Jersey Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Rutgers University, Rowan University and Stevens Institute of Technology.

For more information, contact Mike Wiley, NJHF, at (908) 731-6612 or [email protected]. 

About New Jersey Health Foundation
New Jersey Health Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation that supports biomedical research and health-related education programs in New Jersey through its matching program, its Grants Program and its affiliate, Foundation Venture Capital Group which makes private equity investments in life science start- up companies in New Jersey headed toward commercialization.

SOURCE New Jersey Health Foundation

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