EBV-targeted nanomedicines
Development of new class of therapeutic drugs targeting EBV-associated malignancies is essential.
Problems of traditional chemodrugs
In a normal situation, our normal cells are going through a regulated process to multiply and generate new cells. The series of phases and regulations is called the cell cycle. Different from normal cells, cancer cells have lost the ability in regulating the cell cycle, which results in the accumulation of mutations and uncontrollable growths.
Traditional chemotherapies have been designed to work along the cell cycle to induce cell death. As cancer cells divide quicker than normal cells, chemotherapies have a more significant influence on cancer cells than on normal cells. However, chemodrugs cannot distinguish normal cells and cancer cells, thus traditional chemodrugs are usually associated with lots of side effects.
Target Killer
Our "Target Killers" are aptamers which can deliver the traditional chemodrugs specifically to EBV-infected cancer cells. We have identified aptamers that can specifically bind to and be internalized into EBV-positive cells. Because of the similar structure of nucleotides to chemotherapy drugs, aptamers can be integrated with chemotherapy drugs, such as gemcitabine and fluorouracil. These bifunctional aptamers show enhanced binding affinity as well as targeting delivery of chemotherapy drugs to EBV-infected cancer cells with high efficiency. It is an effective approach to lower chemodrug's effective dose and reduce side effects.
Smart Bomb
Our smart bomb is an mRNA-encapsulated lipid-nanoparticle (mRNA-LNP) that can induce the expression of EBV viral proteins for the specific killing of EBV-positive cancer cells.
Our synthetic mRNA can effectively activate the lytic reactivation of EBV, as well as inducing the expression of an EBV viral protein, which can convert a non-toxic prodrug to an active cytotoxic toxin. By introducing the prodrug and the synthetic mRNA to human bodies, it can induce the rapid killing of EBV-positive cancer cells. Our smart bomb can cause the EBV-positive cancer cells to self-destruct. However, the toxic effect cannot be elicited in healthy cells (which do not contain the EBV genome) even if they express the mRNA and its encoded protein.
Anti-tumor immune commander
mRNA therapeutic vaccine which encodes EBV antigens for training anti-cancer T-cell response to EBV-infected cancer cells.