A versatile antibody capture system drives specific in vivo delivery of mRNA-loaded lipid nanoparticles.

Efficient and precise delivery of mRNA is critical to advance mRNA therapies beyond their current use as vaccines. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) efficiently encapsulate and protect mRNA, but non-specific cellular uptake may lead to off-target delivery and minimal delivery to target cells. Functionalizing LNPs with antibodies enables targeted mRNA delivery, but traditional modification techniques require complex conjugation and purification, which often reduces antibody affinity.

Nanoparticles for vaccine and gene therapy: Overcoming the barriers to nucleic acid delivery.

Nucleic acid therapeutics can be used to control virtually every aspect of cell behavior and therefore have significant potential to treat genetic disorders, infectious diseases, and cancer. However, while clinically approved to treat a small number of diseases, the full potential of nucleic acid therapeutics is hampered by inefficient delivery. Nucleic acids are large, highly charged biomolecules that are sensitive to degradation and so the approaches to deliver these molecules differ significantly from traditional small molecule drugs.