Beyond the Backbone: Nanoplasmids in Live Cells

Portal and Richard Harbottle's Lab on what happens when you strip the bacterial DNA out

Nanoplasmids strip out most of the bacterial backbone, and that turns out to matter a great deal once the DNA is inside the cell. When we boost them in, they express markedly better than a conventional plasmid, and without the DNA toxicity that usually shows up as you push concentration higher.

Richard Harbottle's DNA Vector Lab at DKFZ builds episomal vectors on the same idea, designed to keep expressing without ever integrating into the genome. Join both groups for a look at what we're each seeing.

What You'll Learn:

What makes a nanoplasmid different from a standard plasmid, and why that shows up in expression
What we see when we boost nanoplasmids into primary T cells and other hard-to-transfect populations
How the DNA Vector Lab gets expression that lasts without integrating into the genome
Where this leaves non-viral cell engineering, and what we'd try next

Courtney Dysthe
Senior Scientific Partner Portal Bio
Richard P. Harbottle, Ph.D.
Head, DNA Vector Lab German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Beeke Tappe
DNA Vector Lab German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)