Liquidia Technologies has started early clinical testing of its first vaccine developed using nanotechnology.

The Durham company, which has raised $25 million in financing this year, is testing a seasonal flu vaccine aimed at adults over 65.

Liquidia is also developing experimental cancer treatments and other products based on the nanotechnology research of founder Joseph DeSimone, a chemist at N.C. State and UNC Chapel Hill.

The flu vaccine will require years of clinical testing before it can win marketing approval from U.S. regulators. The vaccine is designed to have tiny particles deliver the medicine more safely and effectively.

Two chemists at N.C. State University are making waves, or rather, starch-based foam particles, through green engineering. Read more about it here.

A Durham company developing new vaccines and other products using tiny particles has raised $20 million in venture capital financing.

Liquidia Technologies plans to use the money to continue clinical testing of its experimental vaccine based on nanotechnology.

The company, which employs 46, previously raised more than $30 million in venture financing. In addition, Liquidia and its founder, N.C. State and UNC-Chapel Hill chemist Joseph DeSimone, won a $3 million federal grant in December.

The latest funding will carry Liquidia "well into 2011" and pay to hire at least 10 new workers to prepare for human testing later this year, CEO Neal Fowler said. "You celebrate for about a day, then it's back to execution."

Liquidia Technologies will receive about $3 million in funding from a division of the U.S. Commerce Department to further develop a process of making vaccines and other products from tiny particles.

The funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology follows more than $30 million in venture capital financing that Liquidia has attracted.

The Durham-based company is using so-called nanotechnology to find new medicines and other products. Its PRINT manufacturing process allows the company to produce precisely engineered particles for various uses.

Three Triangle scientists have won prestigious awards to further their research.

Tannishtha Reya, an associate professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, and Joseph DeSimone, a chemistry professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State, each have received this year's National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer award. The award comes with a five-year, $2.5 million grant.

Also at Duke, Michel Bagnat, assistant professor of cell biology, won an NIH Director's New Innovator award. That includes a $1.5 million grant over five years. Bagnat won for his research on cystic fibrosis.