mRNA vaccines saved tens of millions of lives during the pandemic. This set the stage for next-generation RNA therapies to treat heart disease, cancer, and other maladies. We work on RNA therapies to replace, edit, or silence genes in order to treat disease.
RNA drugs have successfully treated liver diseases in humans. However, treating other diseases has been hard, since delivery to other tissues is challenging. To accelerate the discovery of delivery systems that target new tissues, we developed barcoded nanoparticles to run hundreds of drug delivery experiments at once.
By working with industry and starting two biotechs, we have learned about clinical nanomedicine. We combine chemistry, engineering, and new manufacturing infrastructure to scale up drugs to human doses. The ability to identify nanoparticles using barcoding and then scale them up allows us to perform truly translational work in the lab.