Publications by authors named "Clive A Prestidge"

Multiple myeloma (MM) is an incurable malignancy of plasma cells that accounts for 10% of all haematological malignancies diagnosed worldwide. The poor outcome of patients with MM highlights the ongoing need for novel treatment strategies. Ferroptosis is a recently characterised form of non-apoptotic programmed cell death.

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Conventional antibiotic therapies often fail to eradicate bacterial biofilms due to limited penetration, altered microenvironments, and the presence of persister cells, contributing to persistent and recurrent infections. As a result,the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, particularly those forming biofilms, underscores the urgent need for alternative therapeutic strategies. Lipid-based drug delivery systems have emerged as effective nanocarriers for antimicrobials, offering a promising strategy to combat bacterial biofilms due to their biomimetic properties, biocompatibility, and ability to navigate the complex physical, chemical, and biological barriers posed by biofilms.

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: Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and polyethyleneimine (PEI) have independently been used for DNA complexation and delivery. However, non-ideal gene delivery efficiency and toxicity have hindered their clinical translation. We developed DNA-PEI-LNPs as a strategy to overcome these limitations and enhance DNA delivery and transgene expression.

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Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFA) are essential dietary supplements with widespread health benefits. However, achieving therapeutic n-3 PUFA levels in systemic circulation represents a significant dosing challenge, complicated by a complex interaction between different physiological and chemical factors. Recently, significant efforts have been directed towards creating "bio-accessible" n-3 PUFA formulations that overcome this dosing challenge by enabling increased oral absorption across the small intestine.

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Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are now highly effective transporters of nucleic acids to the liver. This liver-specificity is largely due to their association with certain serum proteins, most notably apolipoprotein E (ApoE), which directs them to liver cells by binding to the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) receptors on hepatocytes. The liver's distinct anatomy, with its various specialized cell types, also influences how LNPs are taken up from the circulation, cleared, and how effective they are in delivering treatments.

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Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is characterised by chronic inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, with unclear aetiology but with known factors contributing to the disease, including genetics, immune responses, environmental factors and dysbiosis of the gut microbiota. Existing pharmacotherapies mainly target the inflammatory symptoms of disease, but recent research has highlighted the capacity for microbial-accessible carbohydrates that confer health benefits (ie, prebiotics) to selectively stimulate the growth of beneficial gut bacteria for improved IBD management. However, since prebiotics vary in source, chemical composition and microbiota effects, there is a clear need to understand the impact of prebiotic selection on IBD treatment outcomes.

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Infections caused by fungal pathogens are a global health problem, and have created an urgent need for new antimicrobial strategies. This report details the synthesis of lipidated 2-vinyl-4,4-dimethyl-5-oxazolone (VDM) oligomers an optimized Cu(0)-mediated reversible-deactivation radical polymerization (RDRP) approach. Cholesterol-Br was used as an initiator to synthesize a library of oligo-VDM (degree of polymerisation = 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25), with an α-terminal cholesterol group.

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Decreased saliva production due to salivary gland damage can result in difficulty speaking and swallowing, significantly reducing quality of life for head and neck cancer patients receiving radiotherapy. It is therefore imperative that treatment options are available to mitigate the effects of these debilitating side effects. D-limonene, a naturally occurring terpene, has shown protective effects on saliva production during radiotherapy treatment of mice, however the lipophilic nature of the molecule has necessitated a high oral dose to facilitate sufficient absorption.

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Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) are among the recalcitrant bacterial strains that cause difficult-to-treat infections for patients with chronic underlying pulmonary conditions. The bacteria's intrinsic resistance to various antibiotics and their ability to infect macrophages enable them to overcome both the host immune response and standard antibiotics. Unconventional approaches to treating NTM-mediated infections are required.

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DNA-based therapies are often limited by challenges such as stability, long-term integration, low transfection efficiency, and insufficient targeted DNA delivery. This review focuses on recent progress in the design of non-viral delivery systems for enhancing targeted DNA delivery and modulation of therapeutic efficiency. Cellular uptake and intracellular trafficking mechanisms play a crucial role in optimizing gene delivery efficiency.

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Abiraterone acetate, a prodrug of abiraterone, is an effective antiandrogen for treating metastatic prostate cancer. However, its poor aqueous solubility restricts oral bioavailability to under 10% in fasted conditions. Additionally, its pharmacokinetics are significantly influenced by food intake, leading to variable exposure that can impact treatment safety and efficacy.

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Antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) are a well-established therapeutic modality based on RNA interference, but low cellular uptake, limited ability to direct ASO trafficking, and a range of intracellular barriers to successful activity compromise both gene silencing outcomes and clinical translations. Herein, we demonstrate that polymers can increase ASO internalisation intracellular trafficking pathways that are distinct from lipid-based delivery reagents. For the first time, we spatially define internalisation and dissociation stages in the polymer-mediated cytosolic delivery of ASOs using Nanoscale Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (NanoSIMS), which enables visualisation of ASO localisation at the organelle level.

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Nanomedicines have created a paradigm shift in healthcare. Yet fundamental barriers still exist that prevent or delay the clinical translation of nanomedicines. Critical hurdles inhibiting clinical success include poor understanding of nanomedicines' physicochemical properties, limited exposure in the cell or tissue of interest, poor reproducibility of preclinical outcomes in clinical trials, and biocompatibility concerns.

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Increasing attention is being afforded to understanding the bidirectional relationship that exists between oral drugs and the gut microbiota. Often overlooked, however, is the impact that pharmaceutical excipients exert on the gut microbiota. Subsequently, in this study, we contrasted the pharmacokinetic performance and gut microbiota interactions between two commonly employed formulations for poorly soluble compounds, namely 1) an amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) stabilised by poly(vinyl pyrrolidone) K-30, and 2) a lipid nanoemulsion (LNE) comprised of medium chain glycerides and lecithin.

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Pulmonary delivery of therapeutics (e.g., biologics, antibiotics, and chemotherapies) encapsulated in nanoparticles is desirable for the ability to provide a localised treatment, bypassing the harsh gastrointestinal environment.

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Bacteria have evolved survival mechanisms that enable them to live within host cells, triggering persistent intracellular infections that present significant clinical challenges due to the inability for conventional antibiotics to permeate cell membranes. In recent years, antibiotic nanocarriers or 'nanoantibiotics' have presented a promising strategy for overcoming intracellular infections by facilitating cellular uptake of antibiotics, thus improving targeting to the bacteria. However, prior to reaching host cells, nanocarriers experience interactions with proteins that form a corona and alter their physiological response.

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Inulin, a non-digestible polysaccharide, has gained attention for its prebiotic properties, particularly in the context of obesity, a condition increasingly understood as a systemic inflammatory state linked to gut microbiota composition. This study investigates the short-term protective effects of inulin with different degrees of polymerization (DPn) against metabolic health deterioration and gut microbiota alterations induced by a high-fat diet (HFD) in Sprague Dawley rats. Inulin treatments with an average DPn of 7, 14, and 27 were administered at 1 g/kg of bodyweight to HFD-fed rats over 21 days.

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The opportunistic bacteria growing in biofilms play a decisive role in the pathogenesis of chronic infectious diseases. Biofilm-dwelling bacteria behave differently than planktonic bacteria and are likely to increase resistance and tolerance to antimicrobial therapeutics. Antimicrobial adjuvants have emerged as a promising strategy to combat antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and restore the efficacy of existing antibiotics.

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MP-A08 is a novel sphingosine kinase 1 (SPHK1) inhibitor with activity against acute myeloid leukemia (AML). A rationally designed liposome-based encapsulation and delivery system has been shown to overcome the physicochemical challenges of MP-A08 and enable its effective delivery for improved efficacy and survival of mice engrafted with human AML in preclinical models. To establish therapies that overcome AML's heterogeneous nature, here we explored the combination of MP-A08-loaded liposomes with both the standard chemotherapy, cytarabine, and the targeted therapy, venetoclax, against human AML cell lines.

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γδ T cells are a unique subset of T lymphocytes, exhibiting features of both innate and adaptive immune cells and are involved with cancer immunosurveillance. They present an attractive alternative to conventional T cell-based immunotherapy due, in large part, to their lack of major histocompatibility (MHC) restriction and ability to secrete high levels of cytokines with well-known anti-tumour functions. To date, clinical trials using γδ T cell-based immunotherapy for a range of haematological and solid cancers have yielded limited success compared with studies.

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Antimicrobial resistance and tolerance (AMR&T) are urgent global health concerns, with alarmingly increasing numbers of antimicrobial drugs failing and a corresponding rise in related deaths. Several reasons for this situation can be cited, such as the misuse of traditional antibiotics, the massive use of sanitizing measures, and the overuse of antibiotics in agriculture, fisheries, and cattle. AMR&T management requires a multifaceted approach involving various strategies at different levels, such as increasing the patient's awareness of the situation and measures to reduce new resistances, reduction of current misuse or abuse, and improvement of selectivity of treatments.

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Bacterial pathogens are constantly evolving to outsmart the host immune system and antibiotics developed to eradicate them. One key strategy involves the ability of bacteria to survive and replicate within host cells, thereby causing intracellular infections. To address this unmet clinical need, researchers are adopting new approaches, such as the development of novel molecules that can penetrate host cells, thus exerting their antimicrobial activity intracellularly, or repurposing existing antibiotics using nanocarriers (i.

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Self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (i.e. SEDDS, SMEDDS and SNEDDS) are widely employed as solubility and bioavailability enhancing formulation strategies for poorly water-soluble drugs.

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Many viruses, bacteria, and parasites rely on the lymphatic system for survival, replication, and dissemination. While conventional anti-infectives can combat infection-causing agents in the bloodstream, they do not reach the lymphatic system to eradicate the pathogens harboured there. This can result in ineffective drug exposure and reduce treatment effectiveness.

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