By delivering strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells, researchers can induce the cells to produce any protein encoded by the mRNA. This technique holds great potential for administering vaccines or treating diseases such as cancer, but achieving efficient delivery of mRNA has proven challenging.
By delivering strands of genetic material known as messenger RNA (mRNA) into cells, researchers can induce the cells to produce any protein encoded by the mRNA. This technique holds great potential for administering vaccines or treating diseases such as cancer, but achieving efficient delivery of mRNA has proven challenging.
Now, a team of MIT chemical engineers, inspired by the way that cells translate their own mRNA into proteins, has designed a synthetic delivery system that is four times more effective than delivering mRNA on its own.
“If we want to be able to deliver mRNA, then we need a mechanism to be more effective at it because everything that’s been used so far gives you a very small fraction of what would be the optimal efficiency,” says Paula Hammond, a David H. Koch Professor in Engineering, the head of MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.
Read more at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Photo: “If we want to be able to deliver mRNA, then we need a mechanism to be more effective at it because everything that’s been used so far gives you a very small fraction of what would be the optimal efficiency,” says professor Paula Hammond. Credit: Bryce Vickmark
