Congratulations Laura!
Screening cascade of polymeric vectors© 2021 EPFL
The work of Laura and Céline, developed in collaboration with the teams of J. Huwyler (UniBasel) and B. Thöny (KISPI), was publised in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences / Special Issue "Chitosan Functionalizations, Formulations and Composites 2.0".
Link to the publication
In this study, a versatile synthetic route was developed for the production of covalent polymeric conjugates consisting of water-soluble depolymerized chitosan and low molecular weight polyethylenimine, futher functionalized with PEG derivatives. The copolymers were evaluated based on their physicochemical properties, including purity, covalent bonding, solubility in aqueous media, ability for DNA condensation, and colloidal stability of the resulting polyplexes. Following their assessment for transfection efficiency and cytotoxicity, a lead candidate was identified and scaled-up for further in vivo evaluation in wild-type mice. Compared to the commercially available non-viral delivery vector in vivo-jetPEI, this novel chitosan derivative led to liver-specific bioluminescence with an increased signal intensity by a factor of 10.
Swiss National Science Foundation (Sinergia Grant CRSII5_180257)