Technologies
Vaccines
Current therapies for atherosclerosis focus almost exclusively on
lowering blood cholesterol levels using pharmacological drugs, especially
statins, and none directly target the actual disease process in the artery
wall. Relative risk reduction exceeding
40% proves difficult to achieve with current therapies, and atherosclerosis
remains the primary cause of heart disease and stroke, accounting for up to 50%
of deaths in western countries.
Atherosclerosis is an imbalance between pathogenic T cells and
regulatory T cells in response to athero-antigens, and this imbalance
Lymphatic
filariasis (LF), commonly known as elephantiasis, is a painful and profoundly
disfiguring disease. LF is a parasitic disease caused by microscopic,
thread-like worms that is transmitted through mosquitoes. Approximately 1.3
billion people, primarily long term residents of tropical or sub-tropical
areas, are at risk of contracting LF.
Angiogenesis
is a multi-step process involving degradation of the extracellular matrix, and
then migration, proliferation, and re-differentiation of endothelial cells into
patent vessels. Angiogenesis is normally observed under transient physiological
conditions such as embryogenesis, wound healing, and reproductive functions in
adults. Under pathological conditions such as cancer, abnormal angiogenesis
supports the survival and progression of human tumors.
Existing delivery systems have many limitations related to efficiency and safety. Some of these techniques include the gene gun, high voltage electroporation, lipofection, infective viruses (i.e. retroviruses, herpes and adenoviruses) or bacteria. An ideal molecular delivery system should be safe, highly efficient, biocompatible, non-immunogenic, capable of protecting DNA/RNA/protein, and small in size. The majority of existing delivery systems are used for in vitro transfection and have low efficiencies (i.e.
Herpes simplex virus 1 and 2 are two species of the herpes virus family that cause infections in humans. All viruses in the herpes family produce life-long infections. The proposed technology is a system that was created for developing vaccines and antiviral drugs for HSV-1 and HSV-2. Also, can be used to develop inhibitors of TBK1, a kinase required for proliferation and survival of cancers cells.