Addressing the Delivery Challenges of Genetic Medicines

While genetic medicines promise to transform the way rare diseases are treated, one of the greatest challenges to realizing the full potential of these new therapies is the delivery of them to the cells within the body where they must go to be effective. James Dahlman, associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, has been working to address this issue through the development of nanoparticles that could serve as vectors. We spoke to Dahlman about the delivery challenges of genetic medicines, how nanoparticles compare to viral vectors, and what it takes to develop new vectors that can deliver genetic medicines to where they need to go. This episode is part of our ongoing Platforms of Hope series that explores advances in gene therapy and gene editing.