Medical Design and Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech

Engineered Red Blood Cells Could Carry Precious Therapeutic Cargo

July 1, 2014 By Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Whitehead Institute scientists have genetically and enzymatically modified red blood cells to carry a range of valuable payloads—from drugs, to vaccines, to imaging agents—for delivery to specific sites throughout the body.

“We wanted to create high-value red cells that do more than simply carry oxygen,” says Whitehead Founding Member Harvey Lodish, who collaborated with Whitehead Member Hidde Ploegh in this pursuit. “Here we’ve laid out the technology to make mouse and human red blood cells in culture that can express what we want and potentially be used for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.”

The work, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), combines Lodish’s expertise in the biology of red blood cells (RBCs) with biochemical methods developed in Ploegh’s lab.

RBCs are an attractive vehicle for potential therapeutic applications for a variety of reasons, including their abundance—they are more numerous than any other cell type in the body—and their long lifespan (up to 120 days in circulation). Perhaps most importantly, during RBC production, the progenitor cells that eventually mature to become RBCs jettison their nuclei and all DNA therein. Without a nucleus, a mature RBC lacks any genetic material or any signs of earlier genetic manipulation that could result in tumor formation or other adverse effects.

Exploiting this characteristic, Lodish and his lab introduced genes coding for specific slightly modified normal red cell surface proteins into early-stage RBC progenitors. As the RBCs approach maturity and enucleate, the proteins remain on the cell surface, where they are modified by Ploegh’s protein-labeling technique. Referred to as “sortagging,” the approach relies on the bacterial enzyme sortase A to establish a strong chemical bond between the surface protein and a substance of choice, be it a small-molecule therapeutic or an antibody capable of binding a toxin. The modifications leave the cells and their surfaces unharmed.

“Because the modified human red blood cells can circulate in the body for up to four months, one could envision a scenario in which the cells are used to introduce antibodies that neutralize a toxin,” says Ploegh. “The result would be long-lasting reserves of antitoxin antibodies.”

The approach has captured the attention of the U.S. military and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is supporting the research at Whitehead in the interest of developing treatments or vaccines effective against biological weapons.

Lodish believes the applications are potentially vast and may include RBCs modified to bind and remove bad cholesterol from the bloodstream, carry clot-busting proteins to treat ischemic strokes or deep-vein thrombosis, or deliver anti-inflammatory antibodies to alleviate chronic inflammation. Further, Ploegh notes there is evidence to suggest that modified RBCs could be used to suppress the unwanted immune response that often accompanies treatment with protein-based therapies. Ploegh is exploring whether these RBCs could be used to prime the immune system to allow patients to better tolerate treatment with such therapies.

Related Articles Read More >

TE Connectivity opens global medical device prototyping center in Ireland
Prix Galien USA 2022 nominees
The 24 best medical device innovations of 2022
A portrait of Ellen Roche, MIT School of Engineering associate professor
New implant design prevents scar tissue without drugs, MIT says
UMN artificial blood vessel clinical trial
Minnesota researchers awarded $3.7M grant for artificial, bioengineered blood vessel clinical trial

DeviceTalks Weekly.

August 12, 2022
DTW – Medtronic’s Mauri brings years of patient care to top clinical, regulatory, scientific post
See More >

MDO Digital Edition

Digital Edition

Subscribe to Medical Design & Outsourcing. Bookmark, share and interact with the leading medical design engineering magazine today.

MEDTECH 100 INDEX

Medtech 100 logo
Market Summary > Current Price
The MedTech 100 is a financial index calculated using the BIG100 companies covered in Medical Design and Outsourcing.
DeviceTalks

DeviceTalks is a conversation among medical technology leaders. It's events, podcasts, webinars and one-on-one exchanges of ideas & insights.

DeviceTalks

New MedTech Resource

Medical Tubing

Enewsletter Subscriptions

Enewsletter Subscriptions

MassDevice

Mass Device

The Medical Device Business Journal. MassDevice is the leading medical device news business journal telling the stories of the devices that save lives.

Visit Website
MDO ad
Medical Design and Outsourcing
  • MassDevice
  • DeviceTalks
  • MedTech100 Index
  • Medical Tubing + Extrusion
  • Medical Design Sourcing
  • Drug Delivery Business News
  • Drug Discovery & Development
  • Pharmaceutical Processing World
  • R&D World
  • About Us/Contact
  • Advertise With Us
  • Subscribe to Print Magazine
  • Subscribe to E-newsletter
  • Attend our Monthly Webinars
  • Listen to our Weekly Podcasts
  • Join our DeviceTalks Tuesdays Discussion

Copyright © 2022 WTWH Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of WTWH Media LLC. Site Map | Privacy Policy | RSS

Search Medical Design & Outsourcing

  • Home
  • Medical Device Business
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Financial
    • Regulatory
  • Applications
    • Cardiovascular
    • Devices
    • Imaging
    • Implantables
    • Medical Equipment
    • Orthopedic
    • Surgical
  • Technologies
    • Contract Manufacturing
    • Components
    • Electronics
    • Extrusions
    • Materials
    • Motion Control
    • Prototyping
    • Pumps
    • Tubing
  • Med Tech Resources
    • Subscribe to Print Magazine
    • DeviceTalks Tuesdays
    • Digital Editions
    • eBooks
    • Manufacturer Search
    • Medical Device Handbook
    • MedTech 100 Index
    • Podcasts
    • Print Subscription
    • The Big 100
    • Webinars / Digital Events
    • Whitepapers
    • Video
  • 2022 Leadership in MedTech
    • 2022 Leadership Voting!
    • 2021 Winners
    • 2020 Winners
  • Women in Medtech