MORE | Spring 2022

Development of Biomimetic Nanoparticles for Highly Efficient CRISPR Delivery

Recent advances in genome engineering, namely Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR)-Cas9 gene editing, have revolutionized biomedical research and hold promise for treating genetic disorders. However, inefficient delivery and potential off-target effects remain the major obstacles, limiting clinical applications of gene editing. The objective of this MORE project is to develop novel cell membrane-cloaked nanoparticles carrying CRISPR/Cas9 plasmids complexed with cationic polymers, such as polyethyleneimine, to achieve highly efficient and site-specific delivery of gene editing constructs. The findings obtained from this study would provide new insights into the development of targeted nanomedicine and CRISPR-based therapies.