Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said Wednesday it and four other partner schools snagged $18 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to research therapies and diagnostic tools for heart and lung diseases that use nanotechnology.
Nanoparticles are one-billionth to 100-billionths of a meter in size. Scientists custom-engineer these tiny particles to deliver imaging agents or therapies, such as drugs, chemotherapies or genetic material to specific targets, such as tumors, a particular cell type or sites of inflammation, Washington University said.