Webinar December 2026 – Prof. Åberg

On Wednesday, December 09, 2026, an online seminar on "Improving mRNA delivery by lipid nanoparticles through screening for cellular uptake, endosomal escape, and mRNA expression" will be held at 3.30 p.m. (CET).

The speaker will be Prof. Dr. Christoffer Åberg from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Here you can register for this webinar.

Abstract

Encapsulating nucleic acids in lipid nanoparticles has been immensely successful, both for the delivery of siRNA (Onpattro) and mRNA (the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines). Nevertheless, there are several challenges that hold back an even wider adoption of this technology. In particular, while lipid nanoparticles can successfully enter cells, up to 99% of particles, and consequently the nucleic acid cargo they contain, remain trapped in endo/lysosomal compartments of cells.

Our work aims to address this challenge by screening a library of different formulations of lipid nanoparticles carrying mRNA. Rather than screening based on a single end-point, we measure three key steps: cell uptake, endosomal escape, and, ultimately, mRNA expression. Using fluorescence microscopy and appropriate reporter cell lines these steps can all be measured in an automated high-throughput fashion. While analysis of the rich datasets we have produced is still ongoing, we have already identified 18 formulations that improve upon our benchmark lipid nanoparticle (Onpattro formulation) and 3 formulations that improve upon the current gold standard transfection agent (lipofectamine).

Ultimately, based on this dataset we aim to identify strategies that more generally lead to better mRNA delivery.