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"Industrial and regulatory organizations equipped for translational studies compliant with FDA requirements often do not have the skillset and understanding of sophisticated technologies such as NANPs. These disparities in part contribute
to the gap known as the “Valley of Death” faced by many new
technologies, which must be overcome to benefit patients in
need. Additional hurdles include the high costs and limited
access to non-human primate models that are commonly used
to evaluate safety of traditional TNAs. Crossing the Valley of
Death, therefore, is critical to accelerate the translation of DNA
and RNA NANPs to clinical settings and requires a concerted,
coordinated effort across multiple stakeholders.."
Afonin, Dobrovolskaia, Church, and Bathe.
ACS Nano (2020)
The study of RNA has become one of the most prominent areas in modern biology and biomedicine. RNA is now appreciated to function as an enzyme, natural scaffold, and powerful regulator of gene expression. Our lab's mission is to develop novel functional RNA-based nanomaterials that can either (i) communicate with each other or with cellular machinery or (ii) be readily responsive to various stimuli. In the long term, our research aims at improving the operation of current therapeutic systems and engineering novel “smart” biomaterials.
