Loss of MK2 Enhances Radiation-Mediated Apoptosis in Bladder Cancer.

Background: Bladder cancer patients unable to receive cystectomy or who choose to pursue organ-sparing approach are managed with definitive (chemo)radiotherapy. However, this standard of care has not evolved in decades and disease recurrence and survival outcomes remain poor. Identifying novel therapies to combine with radiotherapy (RT) is therefore paramount to improve overall patient outcomes and survival.

Plasma membrane damage limits cytoplasmic delivery by conventional cell penetrating peptides.

Intracellular delivery of large molecule cargo via cell penetrating peptides (CPPs) is an inefficient process and despite intense efforts in past decades, improvements in efficiency have been marginal. Utilizing a standardized and comparative analysis of the delivery efficiency of previously described cationic, anionic, and amphiphilic CPPs, we demonstrate that the delivery ceiling is accompanied by irreparable plasma membrane damage that is part of the uptake mechanism. As a consequence, intracellular delivery correlates with cell toxicity and is more efficient for smaller peptides than for large molecule cargo.

Nonclinical immunogenicity risk assessment for knobs-into-holes bispecific IgG antibodies.

Bispecific antibodies, including bispecific IgG, are emerging as an important new class of antibody therapeutics. As a result, we, as well as others, have developed engineering strategies designed to facilitate the efficient production of bispecific IgG for clinical development. For example, we have extensively used knobs-into-holes (KIH) mutations to facilitate the heterodimerization of antibody heavy chains and more recently Fab mutations to promote cognate heavy/light chain pairing for efficient assembly of bispecific IgG in single host cells.

Translatability of Stress for Predicting Deamidation and Oxidation Biotransformation on Biotherapeutics.

Biotransformation leading to single residue modifications (e.g., deamidation, oxidation) can contribute to decreased efficacy/potency, poor pharmacokinetics, and/or toxicity/immunogenicity for protein therapeutics.