The Welch Foundation has awarded Professor Aaron Baker with a three-year, $180,000 grant for novel drug delivery research.
Aaron Baker
The Welch Foundation has awarded Professor Aaron Baker with a three-year, $180,000 grant for novel drug delivery research.
Baker, whose group specializes in developing technologies to engineer the vascular system, will use the grant to research nanodisc-based delivery of membrane protein therapeutics.
Proteins have been used as therapies to treat many different diseases. Baker's Laboratory for Cardiovascular Bioengineering and Therapeutics is looking at ways to use protein therapeutics to treat peripheral vascular disease, or the narrowing of arteries in the legs, an extremely common condition that affects up to 20% of people over age 60. In people with diabetes the problem is even worse and can lead to chronic ulcers that don't heal and is the most common cause of limb amputation in the U.S.
Baker's research introduces a new way to deliver protein therapeutics using nanodiscs to create lipid particles that mimic the native cell membrane. Membrane proteins delivered via nanodisc carriers may be more easily absorbed by cells making drug treatments more effective, not only for peripheral vascular disease but also for many other conditions that could benefit from protein therapeuties.
The Welch Foundation is one of the United States' oldest and largest private funding sources for basic chemical research. It supports fundamental chemical research at universities, colleges and other education institutions within the state of Texas.
