Enzyme-instructed siRNA release and functional self-assembly of peptide-based delivery system

RNA interference mediated gene silencing provides one of the most effective treatments for many genetic diseases such as cancer and viral infection. However, due to the many difficulties siRNAs would face during systemic pathway, a delivery system is needed to protect it from degradation and endosomal entrapment, and also to facilitate the unloading of the cargo. In such case, the main objective of this project is to produce a phosphorylation-mediated peptide-based siRNA delivery system. For such system, the connection between the siRNA and the peptide would be reduced by phosphorylating the peptide, leading to siRNA release, which would result in higher RNAi efficacy. If this delivery system can be proved efficient in vitro, it could have potential feasibility to become a pharmaceutical drug eventually.

Faculty Supervisor:

Pu Chen

Student:

Yuxiao Jiao

Partner:

CanPeptide

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of Waterloo