The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce a $2 million grant to the University of Kentucky on Wednesday for nanotechnology research.

The grant will be the EPA's largest ever for nanotechnology research under its Science to Achieve Results program, according to the university. It's also the largest STAR grant ever given to UK.

The money will be used to study ways that nanotechnology could be used to develop new drugs. Nanotechnology is the study of how to manipulate matter on the scale of atoms and molecules.

EPA regional administrator Russell Wright will join UK President Lee T. Todd Jr. in making the announcement at UK's Wethington Building. Robert Yokel, a professor of pharmaceutical science at UK, and Michael Tseng, with the Department of Anatomical Sciences at the University of Louisville, also will participate.

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