Polymeric Assemblies for Nucleic Acid Delivery

Polymeric nanomaterial assemblies have several attractive features including tunability, control over the size and structure of the assemblies, and enhanced stability. Furthermore, the chemical versatility of polymers enables the incorporation of various stimuli-responsive moieties. Our group is interested in exploiting these valuable properties to develop polymer assemblies, which could be utilized in a broad range of applications.

We are currently focusing on biomedical aspects such as nucleic acid and small molecule drug delivery. Controlled release of these therapeutics is widely recognized as one of the most significant challenges hindering clinical success. To this end, our lab has designed and synthesized novel photo-responsive block copolymers to bind and encapsulate nucleic acids and mediate efficient release upon application of the photo-stimulus. We have implemented a variety of strategies to expand the versatility of our platform, including formation of mixed polymer carriers to tune the amount of siRNA released, incorporation of anionic excipients for theranostics, and development of a hybrid lipid-polymer formulation to efficiently transfect human primary cells. Furthermore, elucidation of the mechanisms that underlie the gene silencing process has facilitated the design of a simple mathematical model to predict the kinetics of siRNA-mediated gene silencing.