UPenn Drug Delivery Vector Aims to Avoid Immune Attacks

Viruses have had a limited run in the drug delivery game because, while they can home in on tissues throughout the body, our immune systems are wired to mount defenses against them. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have found a way to design viral vectors to elude a common immune function, making the engineered vectors potential vehicles for delivering drugs such as gene therapies to treat diseases.

The group engineered a lentiviral vector that expresses CD47, which is a protein that tells the immune system that a molecule is safe. In cell culture tests, this helped the vector to avoid bec