Nature Communications2023ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Yue Wang, Shi-Kun Zhou, Yan Wang, Zi-Dong Lu, Yue Zhang, Cong-Fei Xu, Jun Wang
PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy is successful but often yields poor benefits due to insufficient T-cell infiltration and low intratumoral concentrations of PD-1/PD-L1 inhibitors. While strategies exist to increase either T-cell recruitment or inhibitor delivery, none actively recruit T cells while achieving…
Read the article →Science Advances2022ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Rasheid Smith, Emad I. Wafa, Sean M. Geary, Kareem Ebeid, Suhaila O. Alhaj-Suliman, Aliasger K. Salem
Cancer vaccines as monotherapies have displayed limited clinical success due to the immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME). Nanoscale formulations can enhance vaccine efficacy by combating TME immunosuppression, but there is a need for novel adjuvant formulations that can be combined with therapeutic cancer…
Read the article →Nanomaterials2021ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Tresa Lopez-Royo, Victor Sebastian, Laura Moreno-Martinez, Laura Uson, Cristina Yus, Teresa Alejo, Pilar Zaragoza, Rosario Osta, Manuel Arruebo, Raquel Manzano
CRISPR/Cas gene-editing components are often encoded on large plasmids (9–19 kb), which are difficult to encapsulate and transfect. Most PLGA nanoparticle (NP) gene-delivery studies use small nucleic acids (siRNA) or small plasmids (<6 kb), and the structural integrity and functional performance of large plasmids in…
Read the article →Materials Science and Engineering: C2021ResearchDrug Delivery
Jiayu Zhou, Yishu Zhai, Jumei Xu, Tian Zhou, Lian Cen
PLGA microspheres are widely used for controlled drug release, but they often exhibit pronounced initial or mid-term burst release. A strategy is needed to finely tune drug release kinetics and suppress burst release, especially for water-soluble drugs. MSNs: Average size 119 nm; specific surface area 902.53 m²/g…
Read the article →Nature Communications2021ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Julia Koerner, Dennis Horvath, Valerie L. Herrmann, Anna Mackeracher, Bruno Gander, Hideo Yagita, Jacques Rohayem, Marcus Groettrup
Cancer immunotherapy needs potent, pharmaceutically defined, GMP-compatible adjuvants for clinical translation. Poly(I:C) is a widely used TLR3 agonist but has ill-defined structure, heterogeneity, pyrogen contamination, and toxicity concerns. Riboxxim is a well-defined 100-bp double-stranded RNA with a…
Read the article →Acta Biomaterialia (Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Acta Materialia Inc.)2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Kelly R. Rhodes, Randall A. Meyer, Justin Wang, Stephany Y. Tzeng, Jordan J. Green
Regulatory T cell (Treg)-based therapeutics show promise for treating autoimmune diseases and preventing transplant rejection, but adoptive Treg transfer is expensive, complex, and difficult to implement. "Off-the-shelf" non-cellular alternatives that can induce endogenous Tregs in vivo are needed. Existing…
Read the article →Science Advances2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Elana Ben-Akiva, Randall A. Meyer, Hongzhe Yu, Jonathan T. Smith, Drew M. Pardoll, Jordan J. Green
Previous red blood cell (RBC) membrane-coated nanoparticles have all been spherical, missing the physical shape component of biomimicry. Particle shape is a critical design parameter affecting biodistribution, macrophage evasion, and targeted interactions. A platform combining physical biomimicry (anisotropic shape)…
Read the article →Materials Science & Engineering C2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Yingxi Lu, Fapu Wu, Weihua Duan, Xueluer Mu, Sha Fang, Nana Lu, Xianfeng Zhou, Wei Kong
DNA vaccines require high doses because naked DNA is poorly delivered to antigen-presenting cells (APCs), and conventional PLGA microsphere encapsulation by W/O/W emulsion can damage DNA, lower supercoiled DNA content, and give low encapsulation efficiency. A controlled-release system is needed that protects DNA…
Read the article →Science Translational Medicine2020ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Xueguang Lu, Lei Miao, Wenting Gao, Ziqi Chen, Kevin J. Mchugh, Yehui Sun, Zachary Tochka, Stephanie Tomasic, Kaitlyn Sadtler, Alain Hyacinthe, Yuxuan Huang, Tyler Graf, Quanyin Hu, Morteza Sarmadi, Robert Langer, Daniel G. Anderson, Ana Jaklenec
STING agonists require frequent intratumoral injections over months to achieve efficacy, leading to poor patient adherence, repeated disruption of the tumour microenvironment, increased metastasis risk, and limited applicability to hard-to-reach tumours. A single-injection delivery system that mimics multiple dosing…
Read the article →Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology2020ResearchDrug Delivery
Serkan Yaman, Harish Ramachandramoorthy, Gizem Oter, Daria Zhukova, Tam Nguyen, Manoj K. Sabnani, Jon A. Weidanz, Kytai T. Nguyen
Melanoma is an aggressive skin cancer with limited treatment efficacy due to non-specific drug targeting, severe side effects, and multidrug resistance. Current cell-based immunotherapies are costly, complex, and carry long-term autoimmune risks. There is a need for a targeted, biocompatible drug delivery system that…
Read the article →Acta Biomaterialia2019ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Zuoying Yuan, Pengfei Wei, Yiqian Huang, Wenxin Zhang, Fuyu Chen, Xu Zhang, Jianping Mao, Dafu Chen, Qing Cai, Xiaoping Yang
Magnesium ions (Mg²⁺) promote bone regeneration, but their effects are strongly concentration-dependent: too little has minimal effect, while excess Mg²⁺ can impair osteoblast activity and bone metabolism. There is no well-established bone tissue engineering scaffold that precisely controls local Mg²⁺ release…
Read the article →Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE)2018ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Elana Ben-Akiva, Kelly R. Rhodes, Randall A. Meyer, Jordan J. Green
Artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) are promising for immune modulation, and anisotropic (ellipsoidal) particles have shown improved T-cell stimulation over spherical particles. However, widely used methods for generating anisotropic particles, such as thin-film stretching, can be difficult to implement…
Read the article →Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces2018ResearchDrug Delivery
Amirhossein Bahreyni, Mona Alibolandi, Mohammad Ramezani, Atefeh Sarafan Sadeghi, Khalil Abnous, Seyed Mohammad Taghdisi
Conventional chemotherapy for breast and colon cancers suffers from low specificity, rapid drug clearance, and severe toxic side effects on healthy tissues, while chemoresistance and metastasis remain major causes of cancer-related mortality. There is an unmet need for targeted delivery systems that can co-deliver…
Read the article →Theranostics2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Xi Zhu, Wei Tao, Danny Liu, Jun Wu, Zilei Guo, Xiaoyuan Ji, Zameer Bharwani, Lili Zhao, Xiaoping Zhao, Omid C. Farokhzad, Jinjun Shi
Surface PEGylation of nanoparticles (NPs) improves circulation time and tumour accumulation but also hinders intracellular delivery, creating the "PEG dilemma" for siRNA therapeutics. While stimuli-responsive de-PEGylation strategies exist, they add complexity to NP design and synthesis. A tunable, serum…
Read the article →Nature Communications2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Daniela Schmid, Chun Gwon Park, Christina A. Hartl, Nikita Subedi, Adam N. Cartwright, Regina Bou Puerto, Yiran Zheng, James Maiarana, Gordon J. Freeman, Kai W. Wucherpfennig, Darrell J. Irvine, Michael S. Goldberg
Systemic immune stimulation for cancer immunotherapy is associated with autoimmune-type pathologies, as the doses required to break immune tolerance can invoke undesired host-vs.-host effects. Targeting endogenous immune cell subsets in the circulation—which actively migrate into tumours—could concentrate…
Read the article →International Journal of Pharmaceutics2017ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Genada Sinani, Melike Sessevmez, M. Koray Gök, Saadet Özgümüş, Alper Okyar, H. Oya Alpar, Erdal Cevher
Mucosal vaccination can stimulate both mucosal and systemic immunity, but free protein antigens generally induce poor systemic immune responses and require adjuvants. There is a need for a safe, effective nasal vaccine carrier that improves antigen stability, uptake, and immunogenicity, especially for poorly…
Read the article →Drug Delivery2016ResearchDrug Delivery
Jie Qu, Liangqiao Zhang, Zhihua Chen, Guohua Mao, Ziyun Gao, Xianliang Lai, Xingen Zhu, Jianming Zhu
Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) has a poor prognosis due to limited drug delivery across the blood–brain barrier (BBB), therapeutic resistance, and recurrence. Nanocarriers may improve temozolomide (TMZ) delivery, but it is unclear which nanocarrier type—polymeric nanoparticles (PNPs), solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs)…
Read the article →Journal of Controlled Release2016ResearchDrug Delivery
Cong Zhang, Tong An, Dan Wang, Guoyun Wan, Mingming Zhang, Hemei Wang, Sipei Zhang, Rongshan Li, Xiaoying Yang, Yinsong Wang
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) has poor prognosis and limited effective systemic therapy. Combination antiangiogenesis and chemotherapy with paclitaxel (PTX) and combretastatin A4 (CA4) is synergistic, but both drugs have poor solubility, lack tumour targeting, and cause systemic toxicity. A tumour…
Read the article →Biomaterials2014ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Luis J. Cruz, Rodney A. Rosalia, Jan Willem Kleinovink, Felix Rueda, Clemens W.G.M. Löwik, Ferry Ossendorp
Dendritic cell (DC)-based therapies have shown clinical benefits but are hampered by labour-intensive, GMP-regulated vaccine preparations requiring multiple steps and donor variability. In vivo targeting of antigens to DC surface receptors using nanoparticle delivery systems could circumvent these drawbacks. However…
Read the article →Nature Nanotechnology2014ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Tarek R. Fadel, Fiona A. Sharp, Nalini Vudattu, Ragy Ragheb, Justin Garyu, Dongin Kim, Enping Hong, Nan Li, Gary L. Haller, Lisa D. Pfefferle, Sune Justesen, Kevan C. Herold, Tarek M. Fahmy
Adoptive cell transfer of tumour-specific T cells is a promising cancer immunotherapy, but efficient and economical ex vivo expansion of T cells remains a bottleneck. Artificial antigen-presenting cells (aAPCs) with high surface area and modular design could overcome cost and scalability limits of dendritic…
Read the article →Pharmaceutical Development and Technology (Informa Healthcare)2014ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Jaber Emami, Aida Pourmashhadi, Hojat Sadeghi, Jaleh Varshosaz, Hamed Hamishehkar
COX-2 is overexpressed in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and is associated with poor prognosis. Celecoxib (Cxb), a COX-2 inhibitor, has antiproliferative and proapoptotic effects, but systemic administration carries cardiovascular risks. Pulmonary inhalation delivery of Cxb encapsulated in biodegradable PLGA…
Read the article →Cellular Immunology (Elsevier)2014ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Mingshui Chen, Haichao Ouyang, Shangyong Zhou, Jieyu Li, Yunbin Ye
Agonistic anti-OX40 monoclonal antibody (mAb) can enhance anti-tumour immunity in preclinical models, but as monotherapy it showed only marginal activity and no objective clinical responses in a phase I trial. A delivery system that improves T cell access, multivalent OX40 engagement, and sustained release of…
Read the article →European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics2013ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
A.L. Silva, R.A. Rosalia, A. Sazak, M.G. Carstens, F. Ossendorp, J. Oostendorp, W. Jiskoot
Overlapping synthetic long peptides (SLPs) are promising for therapeutic cancer vaccination, but Montanide-based formulations have limitations including non-biodegradability, local side effects, poorly controlled release, and limited scalability. PLGA nanoparticles (NPs) offer a biodegradable alternative, but…
Read the article →Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS)2011ResearchDrug Delivery
Che-Ming J. Hu, Li Zhang, Santosh Aryal, Connie Cheung, Ronnie H. Fang, Liangfang Zhang
Long-circulating nanoparticles are needed for sustained systemic drug delivery, but PEGylation—the current stealth gold standard—can face anti-PEG immune responses. A top-down biomimetic approach using natural erythrocyte membranes could better mimic red blood cells (RBCs), nature’s long-circulating carriers, while…
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