Please join the Society for RNA Therapeutics for a LIVE webinar at 9am on January 17th featuring Dr. Dan Peer who will address the topic: The Liver Exodus: Challenges in Extra-Hepatic Delivery of RNAs using Lipid Nanoparticles
Watch the recording here!
Dan Peer is a Professor and the Director of the Laboratory of Precision NanoMedicine at Tel Aviv University (TAU). He is also the Vice President for Research and Development at Tel Aviv University. From 2017 - Present, he is the Founding and Managing Director of the SPARK program of Translational Medicine at TAU.
Prof. Peer’s work was among the first to demonstrate systemic delivery of RNA molecules using targeted nanocarriers to the immune system and he pioneered the use of RNA interference (RNAi) in immune cells. His lab was the first to show systemic, cell specific delivery of mRNA in an animal to induce therapeutic gene expression of desired proteins. This has enormous implications in cancer, inflammation and infection diseases. In addition, his lab was the first to show systemic high efficiency, cell specific therapeutic genome editing in cancer.
Recently, his lab showed the first bacterial mRNA vaccines approach against highly lethal, antibiotic resistance strain.
Prof. Peer has more than 140 pending and granted patents. Some of them have been licensed to several pharmaceutical companies and one is currently under registration (as a new biological drug in Inflammatory Bowel Disease). In addition , based on his work, four spin-off companies were generated aiming to bring innovative personalized medicine into clinical practice.
Prof. Peer received more than 35 awards and honors and he serves on the scientific advisory board and as Board Member of more than 15 companies, and on the editorial board of more than 20 journals. In 2014, he was elected to the Israel Young Academy and in 2023 he was elected to the US National Academy of Engineers (NAE).
In this talk, Peer will share several examples ranging from new therapeutic targets identified for cancer (e.g. CKAP5) to the first bacterial mRNA vaccines and will also share some data on gene editing for cancer therapeutics.
Specifically, modulate gene function that can lead to cell death in the case of tumors or to change of expression of desired proteins for vaccines or editing of cells for knockout or knockin of genes is a major challenge and an unmet need.
Peer and his team have developed several strategies to target unique cell surface receptors and developed a very large library of ionizible lipids with two special features: highly immunogenic or less immunogenic (that can be used for repeated doses). In addition, they developed novel mRNA sequences with more potent immunogenicity that can be utilized against bacterial infection.
Conclusions: Cell specific delivery of RNA payloads is feasible and represent the next generation milestone in personalized medicine.
References:
- Kon E. Kon E., Levy Y., Elia U., Cohen H., Hazan-Halevy I., Aftalion M., Ezra A., Bar-Haim E., Naidu GS, Diesendruck Y, Rotem Y., Ad-El N., Goldsmith M., Mamroud E., Peer D.*, Cohen O. A Single Dose F1-Based mRNA-LNP Vaccine Provides Protection Against the Lethal Plague Bacterium. Science Advances 2023. Mar 10;9(10):eadg1036.
- Chatterjee S., Naidu GS., Hazan-Halevy I., Grobe H., Ezra A. Sharma P., Goldsmith M., Ramishetti S., Sprinzak D., Zaidel-Bar R., Peer D. Therapeutic Gene Silencing of CKAP5 leads to lethality in genetically unstable cancer cells. Science Advances 2023 Apr 5;9(14):eade4800.
- Naidu G.S., Yong S-B, Ramishetti, S. Rampado R., Sharma, P., Ezra A., Goldsmith M., Hazan-Halevy I. , Chatterjee S., Aitha A. Peer D. A Combinatorial Library of Lipid Nanoparticles for Cell Type-Specific mRNA Delivery. Advanced Science 2023. Apr 24:e2301929. doi: 10.1002/advs.202301929.
- Tarab-Ravski D., Hazan-Halevy I.,, Goldsmith M., Stotsky-Oterin L. , Breier D., Naidu G.S., Aitha A., Diesendruck Y., Ng B.D., Barsheshet,, H. Berger T., Vaxman J., Raanani P., Peer D. Delivery of Therapeutic RNA to the Bone Marrow in Multiple Myeloma using CD38-Targeted Lipid Nanoparticles. Advanced Science 2023. May 12:e2301377. doi: 10.1002/advs.202301377.
- Granot-Matok Y. Ezra A., Ramishetti S. Sharma P., Naidu Gonna S., Benhar I. and Peer D. Lipid Nanoparticles-loaded with Toxin mRNA Represents a New Strategy for the Treatment of Solid Tumors. Theranostics 2023.13(11):3497-3508.
- Kon E., Ad-El N., Hazan-Halevy I., Stotsky-Oterin L. and Peer D. Targeting cancer with mRNA-lipid nanoparticles: key considerations and future prospects. Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology, 2023 Aug 16 doi: 10.1038/s41571-023-00811-9.
