Looking for Nanoparticle Delivery PhD students for RNA Therapeutics

@ Nanyang Technological University/School of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (CCEB) (Singapore)

Scope of the Research

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) therapeutics, which are nucleic acid fragments with defined sequences that interfere with specific gene expression or produce therapeutic proteins, are promising medicines, as shown by the recent success with COVID vaccines. They can treat or prevent a multitude of human diseases ranging from infectious diseases to cancers to genetic disorders. However, RNAs are generally large hydrophilic polyanions that cannot enter cells on their own. In addition, naked RNAs are vulnerable to removal by the immune system and by RNases in tissues. Hence, they require suitable delivery vehicles to reach the cytosol, which is the target site of RNA therapeutics. Various families of delivery vehicles have been explored. Among them, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), which are employed in the recent FDA-approved COVID-19 mRNA-LNP vaccines, are one of the most advanced systems. There are now at least 15 FDA-approved RNA therapeutics, including two COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, with another 15 or more approvals expected in the next 5 years. Besides LNPs, polymeric nanoparticles are also commonly researched. However, when RNA Delivery Vehicles enter cells, most of the particles are entrapped in some sub-cellular compartments such as endosomes and are finally destroyed. Only a small fraction of the particles reaches the final target in the cytosol. To reduce toxicity and improve the treatment outcome, a critical hurdle is to improve the endosomal escape efficiency of delivery nanoparticles.

The Laboratory for RNA Delivery Therapeutics @ NTU

Prof Mary Chan-Park and her team have recently won a highly competitive large grant on the design, synthesis and studies of the improved RNA delivery vehicles. New alternative delivery vehicles for the promising RNA nanomedicine are urgently needed to replace the current ones to achieve great delivery efficacy with less side effects. We have shown that some polymeric or lipid nanoparticles are excellent candidates as delivery agents.

This research will be in collaboration with other top international scientists from MIT, and Boston University.

Dr Mary Chan-Park is currently the Director of the Laboratory for RNA Delivery Therapeutics. She is also the current President Chair Professor of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology (2024 onwards) and the 2019 Board of Trustees Chaired Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering (2019-2024), both at the Nanyang Technological University Singapore (NTU Singapore). She also holds a joint appointment at the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at NTU. She is the Director of the Centre for Antimicrobial Bioengineering and the Director of the Laboratory for RNA Delivery Therapeutics. She is a Fellow of the America Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. She is also an associate editor of the American Chemical Society (ACS) Applied Materials & Interfaces. She is the world’s top 2% scientists according to the Stanford University List (in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, and Polymers). She has published extensively, with more than 250 papers in top-tier journals such as Nature Communications (2024, 2019), PNAS (2020), ACS Central Science (2020), Nano Letters (2021), Angewandte Chemie (2020), Nature Materials (2011), Advanced Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, JACS, Small, Biomaterials, etc. Her H-index (according to Google scholar) is 70 with 20K+ citations.

Mary Chan-Park’s expertise is in polymer-cellular membrane interaction. She has discovered novel mechanisms for polymer-membrane interactions. She has also developed various cationic polymers for antimicrobial and specific membrane interactions. She has developed new delivery vehicles for RNA therapeutics.

The Positions

PhD Students

Talented BSc/BEng or Master graduates who wish to pursue further in-depth studies in the field of LNP or Polymer Nanoparticles delivery formulations for RNA.

The student should have a BSc/BEng or master’s degree in chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science, bioengineering or related disciplines with good grades.

Prestigious NTU scholarship for 4 years and a well-funded Centre with good research.

How to Apply:

Contact Prof Mary Chan (Centre Director) at mbechan@ntu.edu.sg