Developing nanoparticles for the intracellular delivery of proteins.

Recent development in protein engineering now permits to rapidly and cheaply develop proteins that interact with specific targets, with numerous potential applications, including research, diagnostics, and treatment of diseases. However, a major limitation for the clinical use of such designed proteins, is the requirement for them to cross the cell membrane and enter the cytosol. Obtaining a simple method to achieve this will be transformative in our capacity to exploit protein design for research and therapeutic applications.
The aim of this project is to engineer nanoparticles used for intracellular drug delivery, to instead deliver small proteins. Using AI-powered molecular design approaches, we will modify the nanoparticles to accommodate proteins as cargo, and validate the efficacy of their intracellular delivery.