Non-viral gene delivery
Development of responsive polymers
Dr Alexander’s emphasis for development of DNA delivery vectors is the design and synthesis of thermal and pH reponsive polymers. A variety of strategies are being developed to produce hybrid cationic polymers which will bind DNA, but allow release within the target cell environment. One example is given in the box below.
Specification of polymers and vector formulation.
Dr Garnett has used polyamidoamines and PEGylated polyamidoamines provided by a collaboration with Professor Paolo Ferutti of the University of Milan to produce well characterised multicomponent polyelectrolyte complexes developed specifically as DNA delivery vectors.
In addition to the long standing work for medical application of DNA delivery sytems, Dr Garnett is currently working with Envirogene (www.envirogene.co.uk) on developing these complexes for water tracing applications.
Understanding and formulating DNA Delivery Vectors
Dr Stolnik’s interest in gene delivery lies in the understanding of polycation-DNA interaction and the influence of the polymer nature on the properties of the final complexes (in collaboration with Prof SP Armes, Chemistry, Sheffield. Her interest is also in exploiting nucleic acid based interactions in controlling self assembly of molecules for the design of ‘gentle’ drug delivery carriers (in collaboration with Dr C Hayes, Chemistry, Nottingham).
