Biomaterials2026ResearchNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Chen Y, Li P, Xie Y, Wujieti B, Cui W, Zhang H, Et Al.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. Among them, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 85% of all cases, while the mutation of KRAS oncogene plays a crucial role in its formation and metastasis. Here, we report a transcription activator-like effector (TALE) base…
Read the article →Applied microbiology and biotechnology2026ResearchNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
Farahani Ms, Shamsara M, Moazzeni Sm, Khalili S, Johnson B, Darzi L, Et Al.
Among the emerging cancer therapies, immunotherapy using T cell engineering stands out as one of the most promising approaches. While the clustered regularly interspaced palindromic repeats (CRISPR/Cas) system is widely recognized as one of the most common gene-editing system tools, the main challenge for in vivo…
Read the article →Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany)2026ResearchNon-viral Gene DeliveryDrug Delivery
He L, Yu D, Xie F, Hou K, Li Z, Dai M, Et Al.
Despite the remarkable clinical success of immunotherapy, its efficacy against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains severely limited, highlighting an urgent need for novel targets and strategies to overcome immune evasion. Here, we aimed to identify key regulators of HCC immunity via unbiased functional screening…
Read the article →Biomaterials Science2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Sydney R. Shannon, Elena Ben-Akiva, Jordan J. Green
Gene therapies are transforming treatment for many diseases, but clinical efficacy and safety depend on both the delivery material and the cargo. Non-viral delivery to immune cells remains especially challenging, and no clinical translation breakthrough has yet been achieved for non-viral gene editing. This…
Read the article →Signal Transduction and Targeted Therapy2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Qin S, Tang X, Chen Y, Et Al.
mRNA therapeutics have fuelled hope to combat incurable diseases, but insufficient understanding of mRNA instability, immunogenicity, and delivery has impeded progress. The review argues that mRNA-based drugs—especially after the COVID-19 vaccine success—can become powerful, versatile tools, and that mRNA…
Read the article →Advanced Healthcare Materials2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Erin W. Kavanagh And Jordan J. Green
Viral vectors dominate gene therapy but suffer from immunogenicity, insertional mutagenesis risk, cargo-size limits, and manufacturing challenges. Non-viral nanoparticles are safer, more economical, and easier to scale, but their clinical translation has been limited by inefficient delivery, especially for DNA and…
Read the article →2022ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Maeki M, Uno S, Niwa A, Okada Y, Tokeshi M
RNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are clinically validated for siRNA and mRNA delivery, but their therapeutic performance depends critically on reproducible control of size, size distribution, zeta potential, and RNA encapsulation efficiency. Microfluidic devices offer precise mixing, rapid ethanol dilution, high…
Read the article →Stem Cell Research & Therapy2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Farough Marofi, Roza Motavalli, Vladimir A. Safonov, Lakshmi Thangavelu, Alexei Valerievich Yumashev, Markov Alexander, Navid Shomali, Max Stanley Chartrand, Yashwant Pathak, Mostafa Jarahian, Sepideh Izadi, Ali Hassanzadeh, Naghmeh Shirafkan, Safa Tahmasebi, Farhad Motavalli Khiavi
CAR T cell therapy has transformed treatment of hematologic malignancies, but its efficacy in solid tumours remains unsupported. Solid tumours present distinct barriers—antigen heterogeneity, poor T cell trafficking/infiltration, and an immunosuppressive tumour microenvironment (TME)—that limit CAR T cell function…
Read the article →Blood Cancer Journal2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Robert C. Sterner, Rosalie M. Sterner
CAR-T cell therapy has produced remarkable clinical responses in certain B cell leukemias and lymphomas, but major limitations remain—including life-threatening toxicities, limited efficacy in solid tumours, antigen escape, poor persistence/trafficking, and an immunosuppressive microenvironment. This review addresses…
Read the article →EBioMedicine* (Elsevier)2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Ella S. Atsavapranee, Margaret M. Billingsley, Michael J. Mitchell
Adoptive T cell therapy has been revolutionized by genetic engineering, but viral transduction—the standard delivery method—has limitations including small cargo capacity, high immunogenicity, high manufacturing cost, and risks of genotoxicity/insertional mutagenesis. There is a need for improved non-viral delivery…
Read the article →Journal of Materials Chemistry B2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Rih-Yang Huang, Zhuo-Hao Liu, Wei-Han Weng, Chien-Wen Chang
Gene therapy requires safe, precise, efficient, and cost-effective delivery. Viral vectors are efficient but face manufacturing, cost, and safety challenges; non-viral vectors are safer and more scalable but often have low delivery efficiency. Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) have emerged as a promising strategy to…
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 →Pharmaceutics2021ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Zak Mm, Zangi L
mRNA therapeutics are limited by innate immune activation, rapid RNase degradation, and inefficient delivery to target organs. Although LNPs are the only clinically approved RNA therapeutic carriers, most systemically delivered LNPs accumulate in the liver, so organ-specific delivery remains a major barrier for…
Read the article →Nature Communications2020ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Karen Bulaklak And Charles A. Gersbach
Gene therapy is at an inflection point: recent approvals and clinical successes have validated the field, but broader application is still limited by immune responses to vectors, inefficient delivery outside the retina and liver, and regulatory frameworks that are poorly suited to personalised, potentially curative…
Read the article →Molecular Therapy2019ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Piotr S. Kowalski, Arnab Rudra, Lei Miao, Daniel G. Anderson
mRNA has broad therapeutic potential for vaccination, protein replacement, and gene editing, but its clinical translation is limited by the need for improved intracellular delivery systems. mRNA is much larger than siRNA or ASOs (~300–5,000 kDa, ~1–15 kb vs ~14 kDa and 4–10 kDa, respectively), making delivery more…
Read the article →Biomaterials Science2019ResearchNon-viral Gene Delivery
Brynn R. Olden, Emmeline Cheng, Yilong Cheng, Suzie H. Pun
T cells are an important target for ex vivo gene delivery and editing, but most commercial reagents cannot transfect them and cationic polymers show only moderate success. The specific intracellular barriers limiting non-viral gene delivery to human T cells are poorly understood, hindering rational polymer design…
Read the article →Nature Reviews Materials2017ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Khalid A. Hajj And Kathryn A. Whitehead
mRNA therapeutics have enormous potential for vaccines, cancer immunotherapy, protein replacement, and gene editing, but widespread clinical application is limited by the lack of safe and effective delivery vehicles. Naked mRNA is large (~10⁵–10⁶ Da), densely negatively charged, and rapidly degraded by nucleases; its…
Read the article →Molecular Therapy2017ReviewNon-viral Gene Delivery
Cullis Pr, Hope Mj
Genetic drugs such as siRNA, mRNA, and plasmid DNA could treat most diseases by silencing pathological genes, expressing therapeutic proteins, or enabling gene editing. However, naked RNA/DNA is rapidly degraded, does not accumulate in target tissues, and cannot cross cell membranes efficiently. Lipid nanoparticles…
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