Nebraska nanoscientist returns to Mother Russia with $4.5M grant

A drug-delivery expert in Nebraska is going to begin "commuting" to Moscow after the Russian native scored a $4.5 million "mega-grant" from the country of his birth. Alexander "Sasha" Kabanov, director of the Center for Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, is a U.S. citizen, but keeps close ties with Russia, including his 84-year-old Muscovite mother. It's why he applied for the mega-grant in the first place, reports the Omaha World-Herald.

Kabanov and his team develop nanomaterials for delivery of therapeutics to treat cancer and other diseases. What he's going to do at Moscow State University is to study chemical formulations of enzymes and proteins for bionanomaterials, hoping to employ enzymes in the battle against drug-resistant bacteria.

Kabanov was among 40 chosen from about 500 applications for the grants. He told the World-Herald that he will juggle his responsibilities in Moscow and in Omaha by using vacation time and two "consulting days" allotted per month to travel to Russia. "For a scientist, there is no such thing as Omaha or Moscow," he told the newspaper. "My colleagues joke that every hotel I stay in is ‘home.'"

- read more in the Omaha World-Herald