Sandro Mecozzi, associate professor, will serve as Principal Investigator and Michael Taylor, assistant professor, Co-Investigator for a NIH R21 grant to develop biomaterials used to produce nanoemulsions that will allow the consistent and precise delivery of medically relevant amounts of antibiotics, antifungal and anticancer agents. These agents are characterized by very low water-solubility and need a specific formulation to be delivered in an effective manner. The studies supported by this grant address the need of preparing highly stable drug-containing nanoemulsions that will allow effective time release and drug delivery. These medically important properties of emulsions are achieved by using a novel class of triphilic polymers designed and synthesized in the laboratories of Dr. Mecozzi. Preliminary results show a high drug loading capacity and effective drug time-release. Mecozzi’s research interests include the design and synthesis of fluorinated agents for nanomedicine, and the molecular recognition and bioorganic chemistry of RNA. Taylor’s research focus is modeling blood-CNS barriers in zebrafish, developing new strategies for drug delivery to the brain, and understanding the regulation of multidrug resistance transporters.