Drs. Anna Blakney (pictured) and Jayachandran Kizhakkedathu (not pictured) are recipients of the 2022/2023 Precision Health Catalyst Grant award for their project entitled “Next-generation anti-cancer antibody formats enabled through development of novel low immunogenic RNA delivery”
Read a summary of the project here.
“This project will develop a low immunogenic novel delivery platform that enables the development and formulation of high-efficacy RNA-launched therapeutic anti-cancer antibodies with immense commercial potential. This platform will simultaneously circumvent existing bottlenecks in antibody development and manufacturing, whilst overcoming a key current limitation in the delivery of RNA therapeutics.”
1. Can you tell us about the precision health research work you’re collaborating on?
Our collaborative work, between the Blakney and Kizhakkedathu labs, focuses on developing next-generation lipid nanoparticle formulations for RNA cancer immunotherapies. Two of the main challenges in the field are developing more stable formulations that don’t require storage at -80C and engineering new formulations that don’t include polyethylene glycol (PEG). Many patients have antibodies against PEG, which results in faster clearance and lower efficacy of the therapy. Here, we’re aiming to develop new polymers that confer stability and eliminate the need to use PEG in LNP formulations.
2. What results have you seen so far?
We recently published a joint paper in Advanced Function Materials that shows that our new ultra-hydrating polymer is able to stabilize not only RNA and LNP formulations, but also protein therapeutics, against a variety of stressors including freezing, heat and lyophilization. This is a great first step to replacing PEG in these formulations, and we’re now using this knowledge to create further designs.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/adfm.202406878
3. From your perspective, what do you think is exciting about the future direction of precision health?
We are gaining so much information about patient health, including personalized measurements for blood chemistry, genomes and microbiomes. This is highly complementary to the RNA LNP platform wherein we can design therapies for a variety of potential diseases, and manufacture them at smaller scale and lower patient cost, which will enable a new era of personalized medicine.
About Dr. Anna Blakney
Dr. Anna Blakney is an Assistant Professor and Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Nucleic Acid Bioengineering in the Michael Smith Laboratories and School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC. She received her Bachelor of Science in Chemical & Biological Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder, and her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Washington. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Imperial College London on the development of molecular and biomaterial engineering strategies for delivery of self-amplifying RNA. Her lab uses bioengineering, molecular biology and immunology approaches to develop the next generation of RNA vaccines and therapies. Her research has been published in a variety of top tier journals including ACS Nano, Nature Communications, Molecular Therapy, Biomaterials, Journal of Controlled Release, and Advanced Materials. She is also a passionate science communicator and runs a TikTok channel dedicated to educating the public about RNA biotechnology, which now has >250,000 followers and >18M views.