The University of Miamis biomedical nanotechnology institute got a little closer to finding a cure for blindness and diabetes and improving cancer treatment, thanks to a $7.5 million donation announced Tuesday.

The Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation provided the donation. The institute will be renamed in honor of the foundation, which has donated $38 million to medical research and scholarships since 1992, said Kim Greene, the centers executive director.

We think that nanotechnology is on the leading edge of science and medicine, and can literally change peoples lives and upgrade the technology that we currently use for things such as blindness and chemotherapy, Greene said.

Biomedical nanotechnology research involves working with everyday materials such as carbon, but on a nano-scale which is less than one-millionth of a millimeter in size in order to treat and cure medical conditions.

Its extremely small. In fact its getting to the size of molecules, said Dr. Richard J. Cote, director of the institute.

The foundations donation will go in part toward building a clean room in which nano machines and nano devices can be built.

Were talking about something that is much, much cleaner than an operating room in which there is no dust whatsoever, said Cote. Because, you can imagine, when youre working on a very small scale, a piece of dust is like a boulder.

The donation also allows the institute to conduct new research for which there isnt much supporting research making it hard to get funding from more common sources such as the government, Cote said.

The facility, now named the Dr. John T. Macdonald Foundation Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute, has been around for about three years. It brings together investigators from UMs Miller School of Medicine, College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering, and several university departments.

The institute needs to have expertise from a variety of disciplines in order to be comprehensive, Cote said.

Link:
University of Miami’s nanotechnology institute gets $7.5 million donation