Month: August 2021

The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) has announced a new funding opportunity for characterization of islet-derived extracellular vesicles (EVs) for improved detection, monitoring, classification, and treatment of Type 1 Diabetes (T1D).

This initiative will support the development of tools and experimental platforms for the purification and characterization of EVs originating from the human pancreatic islet and its broader tissue environment in healthy individuals, and individuals with T1D or at-risk of developing the disease. It will also support the exploration of the contribution of pancreatic EV biology to islet function, dysfunction and T1D disease initiation; the development of EV-based diagnostic tools for disease monitoring and classification; and the use of pancreatic EV biology to identify novel therapeutic targets.

A letter of intent to apply for the grant must be sent by October 3, 2021.

For more information, see https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/rfa-dk-21-016.html.

This blog originated as a press release from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Thanks to MIT News for allowing us to repost it here.

Made of components found in the human body, the programmable system is a step toward safer, targeted delivery of gene editing and other molecular therapeutics.

Molecular therapies graphicA new system to deliver molecular therapies to cells, called SEND, can be programmed to encapsulate and deliver different RNA cargoes, potentially provoking less of an immune response than other delivery approaches.
Credit: Courtesy of the researchers

Researchers from MIT, the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have developed a new way to deliver molecular therapies to cells. The system, called SEND, can be programmed to encapsulate and deliver different RNA cargoes. SEND harnesses natural proteins in the body that form virus-like particles and bind RNA, and it may provoke less of an immune response than other delivery approaches.

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