An Efficient Peptide Vector for mRNA Vaccination Against COVID19

In the race to find a COVID-19 vaccine, gene-based approaches are the leading choice with some already ongoing clinical trials. However, the major challenge of this technology is the extreme sensitivity and the very low cellular uptake of the gene material that triggers the hosts' immune response, which hampers their potential. To overcome this limitation, we have developed a synthetic platform for the rapid screening of peptide amphiphiles with potential as gene delivery vehicles. approach allowed the identification of a candidate with a remarkable (one order of magnitude in vitro) improvement in delivery efficiency and cellular toxicity compared to typical commercial reagents. Remarkably, this candidate has also recently proven highly active for in vivo delivery of mRNA in mice, which suggests that it can be an excellent non-viral vector for the formulation of mRNA vaccines with a boosted potency, due to the uptake enhancement provided by this conceptually-new delivery vector.