Using a delivery system that relies on extracellular vesicles (small, lipid nanoparticles secreted from a myriad of cell types), the team was able to circumvent two common difficulties associated with a targeted treatment for triple-negative breast cancer: access to tumor sites and stable and effective transport in the body.

Read more about New Drug Delivery Mechanism Could Aid Breast Cancer Treatment.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers led by Mei He, Ph.D., an associate professor of pharmaceutics in the UF College of Pharmacy, and Xiaoshu Pan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral researcher in He’s lab, looked to extracellular vesicles — nano-sized, bubble-like packages that cells release to communicate with one another — in the search for new treatments for progressive, nonsyndromic hearing loss.

Read more about Gene-Editing Platform May Help Treat Hearing Loss.

Extracellular vesicles, or EVs, are a relatively new approach to delivering genome editing therapeutics — the small, membrane-bound vesicles act as envelopes delivering intercellular communications that influence a cell’s behavior or function. By optimizing and validating their EV platform, He’s team will be able to accelerate the clinical translation of EV-based therapeutic products, a task that currently poses a significant challenge in the field.