Shuming Nie, Ph.D.

Wallace H. Coulter Distinguished Chair in
Biomedical Engineering at Emory and Georgia Tech
Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Chemistry,
Hematology & Oncology
Director for Nanotechnology and Bioengineering,
Winship Cancer Institute

Shuming Nie is one of the world's leaders in detecting single molecules in biological systems -- the science of nanotechnology. He is one of the first scientists in the world to utilize nanotechnology, which has been used in manufacturing for many years, in the biomedical field. Dr. Nie has been invited by the Nobel Foundation and other international centers to describe his research on nanotechnology and the ability to make measurements of molecules in single cells and in trace amounts of biological material. This research has tremendous potential for cancer diagnostics, and monitoring treatment effects in tiny clinical biopsies.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) of the National Institutes of Health recently selected Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology as one of seven National Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence (CCNE). The new center will be named the "Emory-Georgia Tech Nanotechnology Center for Personalized and Predictive Oncology," and will be housed in Emory's Winship Cancer Institute and on the Georgia Tech campus. The amount awarded is $3.66 million for the first year, and is expected to reach $19-20 million over a five-year period.

Earlier, the NIH awarded Dr. Nie and his colleagues' two new collaborative research grants totaling nearly $10 million. The grants will be used to establish a multidisciplinary research program in cancer nanotechnology and to develop a new class of nanoparticles for molecular and cellular imaging.

In each of these grants, investigators are working at the sub-atomic level, seeking data that will link molecular signatures, (underlying molecular features) to patients' clinical outcomes so that cancers can be predicted, detected earlier and treated more effectively. The research will have broad applications to many types of tumors, including prostate, breast, colorectal cancer and lymphoma.

In addition, Dr. Nie and his team will collaborate with cell biologists to study a variety of molecules involved in the development and progression of cancer, including those involved in programmed cell death; genes such as the p53 gene, which is implicated in many kinds of cancer; and microtubules and molecular motors, which are involved in transporting the proteins in cells that regulate cell growth.

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