HOUSTON -- Some universities in Houston and groups at Texas Medical Center will share a $2.8 million federal grant for nanotechnology.

The funding was announced on Wednesday for the Alliance for NanoHealth.

The money comes from a recently approved Department of Defense appropriations bill.

The alliance includes Baylor College of Medicine, Rice University, the University of Houston, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

The group will use the funding to work in developing nanoscale engineering devices that can treat the human body at a molecular level and can identify new clinical approaches.

Nanotechnology blends chemistry and engineering to create tiny devices or systems that operate on the atomic and molecular scale with many potential applications.