Stabilized mRNA Therapeutics with Precise ROS-triggered Delivery

Recently, the use of mRNA was validated to create vaccines against COVID-19; hence, there is significant potential for using them as vaccines and treatments for many other conditions. While mRNA drugs have led to a potential paradigm shift in disease treatment, they face challenges that impede the successful translation of these molecules into drugs. They are very large molecules, are intrinsically unstable, and prone to degradation by nucleases, and they can abnormally activate the immune system. While some of these challenges have been partially solved by chemical modification of mRNA and nanoparticle-mediated delivery, intracellular delivery and off-target effects of mRNA still represent a major hurdle. The novel mRNA technology developed by Clemson researchers overcomes the delivery and targeting challenges with existing mRNA, increasing stability and controlling release location helping fully exploit their effectiveness for many.