Empowered Patient Podcast Using Exomes to Deliver Drugs Inside Cells Opens Opportunities for Treating Rare Diseases with Dr. Antonin de Fougerolles Evox Therapeutics
Dr. Antonin (Tony) de Fougerolles, CEO of Evox Therapeutics, highlights that exosomes, small nanoparticles, are produced by every cell in the body. They contain RNA and proteins that the cell decides to put into the exosome, and they're secreted out into the environment and act as a way that cells communicate with each other. Evox is excited about using exosome therapeutics to load genetic medicines such as RNA interference, small RNA drugs, gene therapy, or genome editing into exosomes and effectively delivering them inside cells. This approach provides a new way to treat rare diseases with an underlying genetic cause.
Tony elaborates, "Exosomes were first discovered or noticed in the scientific literature in the '80s and the early '90s, and at first were thought really just to be vesicles that cells excreted full of what people at the time thought was garbage, things the cell didn't need. In more recent times, in the last 10, 15 years, it's become clear that these exosomes can in some cases serve a function in terms of helping, as I say, cells communicate and sense their environment."
"It wasn't until one of our co-founders, Professor Matthew Wood, used exosomes as a deliberate vehicle. He had the idea, "Well, cells are constantly producing these exosomes. What they put into them is not at all random, it's very directed, and can we make use of that knowledge to actually proactively engineer drugs into these exosomes and then use the exosome's natural ability to deliver cargos inside cells? Can we use that to actually deliver drugs of our interest?"
#EvoxTherapeutics #RareDisease #Exosomes #RareGeneticDiseases #ExtracellularVesicles #RNATherapeutics #Biotech #GeneTherapy #GeneEditing #ProteinTherapeutics #Innovation