Achievement

In the Smith-Schneider lab of the Pioneer Valley Life Sciences Institute, Adaris Rodriguez-Cortes (IGERT trainee) is developing strategies for the delivery of activatable cell penetrating peptides (ACPP) that can sensitize normally resistant tumors to chemotherapy. While ACCPs provide a novel tunable transport system for the controlled release of cargo such as proteins and nanoparticles, they often lack specificity, which increases the risk of systemic toxicity. To improve specificity, Adaris is developing a system that exploits the potential of ACPP-mediated delivery by targeting administration of the cargo to a selected environment within a tissue. Adaris has successfully engineered the ACCP expression vector and is working towards obtaining optimal expression in cellular constructs that naturally home to tumors such as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) and non-pathogenic Salmonella typhimurium.