In an insightful 42-minute interview, NMIN’s Scientific Director Dr. Pieter Cullis, a pioneer in liposomal gene and drug delivery, discusses his scientific career with a focus on his contributions to the evolution of gene therapy.

The interview was conducted on behalf of the Gene Delivery and Gene Editing focus group of the Controlled Release Society (CRS) by Dr. Dominik Witzigmann, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and Operational Lead for NMIN’s NanoCore core facility.

Contents:

A career journey: from undergraduate to post-doctoral studies at Oxford
From physics to nanomedicine: developing an interest in using lipids for drug delivery
From basic science to human health: the questions driving early research
Challenges for gene therapy: the need for well-characterized systems
Discoveries enabling clinical translation: steps toward developing ONPATTRO
Entrepreneurial spirit: motivation to found companies
Founding a company: challenges of running companies
Lipid nanoparticles – a breakthrough technology: developing ONPATTRO
Exciting future innovations: enabling gene therapies & gene editing
Barriers & challenges: going forward
Long-term toxicities: genome editing
Call to action: awareness of gene therapy
Collaborative efforts: working with government & industry
Young scientists can have an impact: opportunities
Rigorous characterization & the use of animal models
Multidisciplinary research & NMIN

Image Credit:  Youtube

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