Two TUIT researchers received personal research support starting grant and a group grant

Congratulations to Marje Kasari on receiving personal research support starting grant (grant "Platform technology based on demand plasmids for antibiotic-free production of recombinant proteins") and Taavi Lehto on receiving a group grant (Development of drug carrier systems and RNA-based therapeutic agents for therapeutic intervention)!

Plasmid-on-Demand Platform for Antibitoic-Free Production of Recombinant Proteins

Recombinant proteins are an important group of products that are widely used in various sectors, including food and pharmaceutical industries, in production of textiles, detergents, cosmetics and biofuels. Proteins can only be produced by living cells, often in bacteria. Unfortunately, antibiotics must be used in bacterial productions and are costly to utilise and eliminate from the end product as required by the regulations. In addition, the use of antibiotics in large scale increases the risk of spreading the antibiotics resistance. In the current project we will create a biotechnological platform that allows the production of different proteins in bacteria without using antibiotics. Our solution is as effective as the conventional ones, but because it does not use antibiotics there is no need to certify that the end product is antibiotics-free. This is especially important for products used in food and pharmaceutical industries.

Developing Drug Delivery Technologies And RNA-based Drugs For Therapeutic Intervention

RNA therapeutics (RNAtx) are a group of nucleic-acid based drug modalities that hold great promise for the treatment of human disease. Among these therapeutics, splice switching oligonucleotides (SSOs) have demonstrated their clinical utility for the treatment of various rare genetic mis-splice disorders, and chemically modified messenger RNA (mRNA), in the form of vaccines, towards immunization against SARS-Cov-2 just recently. However, the low bioavailability of all RNAtx crucially requires the development of more effective and safer drug delivery systems (DDSs) to enable their wider translation into therapies. In this project we will develop novel DDSs to improve the bioavailability of SSO- and mRNA-based drug modalities and study their behavior in cellular and animal models. Furthermore, we will investigate the therapeutic potential of these RNAtx to produce soluble decoy proteins and inhibit pro-inflammatory IL-6 signalling in sepsis and multiple sclerosis models in mice.

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