Program in Genetic Drug Engineering

At UT Southwestern, the Siegwart Research Group uses a materials chemistry approach to enable targeted nanoparticle delivery of genomic medicines.

Research Overview

Our efforts led to an understanding of the essential physical and chemical properties of synthetic carriers required for therapeutic delivery of siRNA, miRNA, tRNA, mRNA, sgRNA, pDNA, proteins, and gene editors. Our lab has been at the forefront in the design of synthetic carriers for gene editing and has applied these technologies for correction of genetic diseases and treatment of cancer. We reported the first non-viral system for in vivo CRISPR/Cas gene editing. Recently, we developed Selective ORgan Targeting (SORT) lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), which was the first strategy for predictable tissue specific mRNA delivery and gene editing.

Lab Members

Our collaborative team is united by scientific curiosity, passion, and friendship. We ultimately aspire to utilize chemistry and engineering to make a beneficial impact on human health.

Publications

Our scientific discoveries have been published in Science, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Communications, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of the American Chemical Society, Angewandte Chemie, Advanced Materials, Nature Protocols, and other leading journals of biomedical science.