Delivery Of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics II: Biology, Engineering And Development

Delivery Of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics II: Biology, Engineering And Development is organized by Engineering Conferences International (ECI) and will be held from Mar 27 - 30, 2022 at Grand Hotel Minareto, Siracusa, Sicily, Italy.

Target Audience:
The conference will bring together biologists, chemists, pharmacologists, biophysicists, drug developers, nanotechnologists, process engineers from academia and industry developing viral and non-viral delivery strategies for the antisense, RNA interference, mRNA, Gene Therapy and Genome Editing, ex vivo and in vivo. 

Description:
Nucleic Acid Therapeutics (NATs), including ASOs, siRNAs, mRNA, Gene Therapy and Genome Editing, can precisely regulate, and potentially correct, gene expression in disease. As such, they can enable the development of novel therapeutic options for disease targets previously considered un-druggable by conventional small molecule and biologics means. 

The NAT therapeutic revolution is ALMOST upon us. While major advances and recent regulatory drug approvals have been made with liver, CNS and eye delivery, delivery outside of these tissues remains the bioengineering technological problem to solve. Even for the most advanced clinical candidates using lipid nanoparticles, currently less than 1% of the NAT cargo is escaping from the endosome. For viral delivery, novel vectors with specific tropism, improved transduction efficiency and safety remain a major need. It is widely recognized that there are significant gaps in our basic understanding of the mechanisms used by non- viral and viral delivery vehicles for tropism, uptake and trafficking in vivo, and how-to best harness this knowledge to advance delivery for therapeutic use. 

The ECI “Delivery of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics: Biology, Engineering and Development” conference will provide a forum for increasing our mechanistic understanding of the biological processes underpinning non- viral and viral NAT delivery, including molecular and cellular biology, virology, in vivo pharmacology and toxicology, rational optimization strategies, targeting, formulation, bioengineering and process development solutions for scale-up manufacturing, regulatory considerations and preclinical and clinical NAT programs.

Main Topics:
The major topics to be discussed are: 
• Nucleic acid chemical modifications and conjugates to enable and enhance delivery
• Liposomes and polymeric nanoparticle delivery vehicles 
• Viral delivery technologies 
• Targeting 
• Mechanisms of cellular uptake and endosomal escape 
• Biophysical characterization methods 
• NAT delivery vehicle toxicology and ADME 
• Local and systemic NAT delivery case studies 

Additional details will be posted as soon as information is available.