SIGNATURE WORK
CONFERENCE & EXHIBITION 2022

My SW is about investigating the potential of various microscopy and imaging techniques as applied to siRNA drug delivery. siRNA is a therapeutic drug because it can be used to halt gene expression, also known as gene knockdown, which is incredibly beneficial for fighting diseases such as cancer.

siRNA faces several challenges before it can be widely implemented as a drug for fighting cancer. For starters, it is highly unstable, and it degrades quickly in your body. To combat this, scientists have implemented nanoparticles. By creating drug carriers for siRNA, the instability of the drug caused by the environment in your body is largely negated.

Another enormous challenge siRNA faces is how it reaches the nucleus of your cell so that it can interact with the right machinery to facilitate gene knockdown. The mechanisms for how siRNA reaches the nucleus are not well known because the nanoparticles go through cell uptake and endosome release, which themselves are poorly understood. Cell uptake is how the NP enters the cell, and endosome release is how the siRNA escapes the endosome it is encapsulated in shortly after entering the cell.

In my project, I provided my insight on which imaging methods are the most useful for studying these mechanisms. I also wrote about the methods that will continue to develop and become more powerful in the future. These techniques could lead to improvements in our understanding of siRNA therapy, which could help with increasing the therapeutic effect of this potentially life-saving drug.