Tom Bourguignon, Preeti Sharma, Inbal Hazan-Halevy, Dan Peer The interest generated by lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) for the delivery of RNA-based therapeutics has undeniably surged since the COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by the growing number of dedicated clinical trials. However, so far, only a handful have made it into a clinical approval. While the development of RNA-LNP systems is hindered by multifactorial issues, including off-target biodistribution and reactogenicity,

Rosenblum D, Joshi N, Tao W, Karp JM and Peer D Nat Commun (2018) 9;1410, 1-12 Targeted delivery approaches for cancer therapeutics have shown a steep rise over the past few decades. However, compared to the plethora of successful pre-clinical studies, only 15 passively targeted nanocarriers (NCs) have been approved for clinical use and none of the actively targeted NCs have advanced past clinical trials. Herein, we review the principles behind targeted delivery approaches to

Peer D, Lieberman J Gene Ther (2011) 18(12):1127-1133. Harnessing RNA interference using small RNA-based drugs has great potential to develop drugs designed to knock down expression of any disease-causing gene, thereby greatly expanding the universe of possible drug targets. However, delivering small RNAs into specific tissues and cells is still a hurdle. Here, we review recent progress in overcoming systemic, local and cellular barriers to RNA drug delivery, focusing on stra

Mizrahy S and Peer D Chem Soc Rev. (2012), 41(7):2623-2640. The use of polysaccharides as building blocks in the development of nano-sized drug delivery systems is rapidly growing. This can be attributed to the outstanding virtues of polysaccharides such as biocompatibility, biodegradability, low toxicity and low cost. In addition, the variety of physicochemical properties and the ease of chemical modifications enable the preparation of a wide array of nanoparticles. This tu