Professor Aaron Baker has received a grant from the American Heart Association to create therapies for ischemia using lipid nanodiscs.
As advances in drug design continue, one challenge is finding the best way to effectively deliver drugs to the right cells. Many new drugs are based on using therapeutic proteins or peptides. While these molecules can allow for many new types of therapeutics, it has been particularly challenging to deliver membrane proteins as therapies.
Aaron Baker, an associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, has received a grant from the American Heart Association to create therapies for ischemia using lipid nanodiscs. These nanodiscs provide a unique way to deliver membrane proteins that may be insoluble or difficult to deliver by other means. These nanodisc carriers may also be more easily absorbed into cells and provide for enhanced activity over other more traditional lipid carriers.
Baker and his team will focus on researching several therapeutic membrane proteins that hold promise in treating ischemia, but are challenging to deliver without a carrier. These new compounds will be tested in both cell culture assays and animal models of ischemia, with the ultimate goal of inducing new blood vessel growth in ischemic areas of the body.
