Every entry summarises what the study set out to test, what it found and why it changes how we design delivery systems. Browse research and reviews or search the collection.
586 articles
Showing 1–24 of 66 articles · Keyword: transfection Clear keyword
Pinto Is, Cordeiro Ra, Faneca H
CAR T cell therapy is FDA/EMA-approved for B cell malignancies and multiple myeloma, but manufacturing relies on viral vectors—associated with safety concerns, high cost, and production challenges—or electroporation, which can be highly cytotoxic. Nanosystems may offer a safer, cost-effective alternative, but T cells…
Read the articleSydney 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 articleKarmacharya P, Patil Br, Kim Jo
mRNA is an attractive platform for cancer immunotherapy, but its instability, susceptibility to RNase degradation, and inefficient endosomal escape limit therapeutic applications. Lipid-based nanocarriers are non-viral vectors that can protect mRNA, improve transfection, and deliver it to intracellular compartments…
Read the articleRakan El-Mayta, Zijing Zhang, Alex G. Hamilton, Michael J. Mitchell
CAR T cell therapies have achieved clinical success but face limitations including restriction to autologous cell sources (to avoid HLA mismatch and GvHD), cumbersome manufacturing, high costs, and poor efficacy in solid tumours. NK cells have emerged as promising alternatives because they can kill cancer cells…
Read the articleQurrat Ul Ain, Estefania V.R. Campos, Ariel Huynh, Dominik Witzigmann, Sarah Hedtrich
Gene therapies are powerful tools to prevent, treat, and cure human diseases, but their application to skin diseases has received little attention despite the easy accessibility of skin and urgent medical need. The main obstacle is the unique barrier properties of human skin, which severely limit absorption of…
Read the articleRih-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 articleArun R. K. Kumar, Yufeng Shou, Brian Chan, Krishna L., Andy Tay
This review examines how viral vectors, electroporation, microfluidic systems, nanoparticles and high-aspect-ratio nanostructures can improve the efficiency, viability and scalability of transfecting primary immune cells for applications such as CAR-T, CAR-NK and gene editing. It highlights the trade-offs between…
Read the articleHo W, Gao M, Li F, Li Z, Zhang X-Q, Xu X.
Nucleic acid vaccines (DNA and mRNA) offer rapid design, adaptability to changing pathogen strains, and stimulation of both humoral and cellular immunity, but their clinical translation is limited by inefficient delivery—nucleic acids are rapidly degraded by endogenous nucleases, have poor cellular uptake due to…
Read the articleHan X, Zhang H, Butowska K, Swingle Kl, Alameh M-G, Weissman D, Mitchell Mj
RNA therapeutics—ASOs, siRNAs, miRNAs, mRNAs, and CRISPR-Cas9 sgRNAs—are limited by nuclease degradation, large size, and negative charge. Ionisable lipids are the key LNP component that condenses RNA, enables endosomal escape, and reduces toxicity. Since 2008, many ionisable lipids have been created, but the field…
Read the articleAshok B, Peppas Na, Wechsler Me
CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing holds major therapeutic promise, but in vivo delivery is arguably the most difficult barrier to clinical translation. Efficient, selective transport of editing components to target cells/tissues while minimising off-target effects remains unresolved. This review critiques lipid- and…
Read the articleAnnika M. Frank, Angela H. Braun, Lea Scheib, Shivani Agarwal, Irene C. Schneider, Floriane Fusil, Severine Perian, Ugur Sahin, Frederic B. Thalheimer, Els Verhoeyen, Christian J. Buchholz
Conventional lentiviral vectors (LVs) are not selective for T cells and cannot efficiently transduce resting or minimally stimulated T lymphocytes, which limits their use for direct in vivo T-cell gene delivery. There is a need for vectors that can both target T cells specifically and activate them sufficiently to…
Read the articleMona Yazdani, Mahmoud Reza Jaafari, Javad Verdi, Behrang Alani, Mahdi Noureddini, Ali Badiee
Melanoma is a poorly immunogenic and highly aggressive skin cancer with limited long-term survival for advanced disease. Dendritic cell (DC)-based vaccines are promising immunotherapies, but their efficacy relies on critical factors including DC maturation state and efficient antigen delivery. Nanoparticulate…
Read the articleStephany Y. Tzeng, Kisha K. Patel, David R. Wilson, Randall A. Meyer, Kelly R. Rhodes, Jordan J. Green
Cancer immunotherapy has shown clinical success but remains limited by low response rates, high cost, and the need for ex vivo cell manipulation or prior knowledge of patient-specific tumour antigens. A broadly applicable, antigen-agnostic strategy that genetically reprograms tumour cells in situ—without ex vivo…
Read the articleGuevara Ml, Persano F, Persano S
mRNA is a flexible and potentially safer cancer immunotherapy platform, but its clinical use has been limited by extracellular instability, poor cellular uptake, and inefficient endosomal escape. Lipid nanoparticles have become the most advanced non-viral delivery system for mRNA, enabling therapeutic vaccines…
Read the articleLiu C, Zhang L, Dong N, Zhang W, Chen X, Gao R, Sun H.
Cationic liposomes (CLs) are promising non-viral gene-delivery vectors, but their clinical use in cancer gene therapy is limited by extracellular barriers (opsonisation, RES clearance, poor tumour penetration) and intracellular barriers (endosomal/lysosomal entrapment, restricted cytoplasmic/nuclear transport). The…
Read the articleChen, C.-K.; Huang, P.-K.; Law, W.-C.; Chu, C.-H.; Chen, N.-T.; Lo, L.-W
Gene therapy is limited by the fragile nature of therapeutic DNA/RNA and by safety concerns with viral vectors. Non-viral polymeric vectors are attractive, but conventional cationic polymers such as PEI, PDMAEMA, and PLL are often non-degradable, causing accumulation, cytotoxicity, and poor gene unpacking. This…
Read the articleKarlsson, J.; Rhodes, K. R.; Green, J. J.; Tzeng, S. Y
Non-viral gene delivery needs safe and efficient carriers. PBAEs are biodegradable cationic polymers with promising transfection activity, but they face challenges such as instability in physiological fluids, positive-charge toxicity, and limited systemic delivery. This review summarises PBAE properties, advantages…
Read the articlePiotr 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 articleSamuel A. Smith, Laura I. Selby, Angus P. R. Johnston, And Georgina K. Such
Many emerging therapies require delivery of biological cargo into the cytosol, but nanoparticle delivery systems are hindered by entrapment and degradation in the endo/lysosomal pathway. Endosomal escape remains a rate-determining step for non-viral delivery. The review highlights the need for greater understanding…
Read the articleThomas, T. J.; Tajmir-Riahi, H.-A.; Pillai, C. K. S
Gene therapy requires efficient delivery of genetic material, but viral vectors carry risks of immunogenicity, toxicity, and cancer formation. Cationic polymers such as polyethyleneimine (PEI) can condense DNA and facilitate delivery, but their lack of biodegradation causes significant toxicity due to polymer…
Read the articleCordeiro, R. A.; Serra, A.; Coelho, J. F. J.; Faneca, H
Gene therapy requires safe and effective delivery vectors. PBAEs are biodegradable cationic polymers with excellent gene delivery properties, but a comprehensive and critical overview of their use as gene carriers is lacking. This review provides the first comprehensive and critical overview of PBAE-based gene…
Read the articleNot Fully Listed In The Supplied File; Corresponding Authors Indicated By Emails: [email protected] And [email protected] Doi/link: Not Included In The Supplied File
Endosomal escape remains a major roadblock for delivering biological therapeutics such as DNA, siRNA, and proteins. Polymeric nanoparticles can protect cargo and target cells, but they often remain trapped in endosomal/lysosomal compartments, where cargo is degraded. A better understanding of how nanoparticle…
Read the articleYao Xiao, Kun Shi, Ying Qu, Bingyang Chu, Zhiyong Qian
In the past 10 years, many clinical nano-gene therapy trials have been discontinued due to poor efficacy and serious side effects. There is a critical need to design suitable gene delivery systems that can protect nucleic acids, enhance transfection efficiency, penetrate deep into tumours, and remain stable and safe…
Read the articleHaiqing Bai, Gillian M. Schiralli Lester, Laura C. Petishnok, David A. Dean
Productive gene transfer requires plasmid DNA to not only enter cells but also traffic through the cytoplasm and cross the nuclear envelope. Most transfection strategies focus on membrane entry and promoter choice, but cytoplasmic trafficking and nuclear import are critical, rate-limiting barriers—especially because…
Read the articleWe co-develop nanocarrier and biosensing programmes with pharma, biotech and academic groups — from target selection through scale-up.
