In our recent plication in Advanced Biology, “Study Transportation of Drugs within Newly Established Murine Colon Organoid Systems,” we demonstrated a new concept of using colon organoids as tools for high-throughput drug screening, toxicity testing, and oral drug development. Congratulations to the students and collaborators. Of course, we appreciate the support from NIBIB!

In our new publication, “Rational design of oral drugs targeting mucosa delivery with gut organoid platforms,” on Bioactive Materials, we rationally designed artificial virus nanoparticles as oral drug delivery vehicles (ODDVs). The ODDVs (with PLL-σ1) significantly improved delivery efficiency, which was evaluated on gut organoid-derived mucosal models. We demonstrated that the M cell was a vital factor in the oral delivery efficiency of the ODDVs. This project has been supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Trailblazer Award.

Our recent manuscript, “Soft Materials as Biological and Artificial Membranes”, is published on Chemical Society Reviews. The past few decades have seen emerging growth in the field of soft materials for synthetic biology. This review focuses on soft materials involved in biological and artificial membranes. The membranes discussed here are those involved in the structure and function of cells and organelles. The illustration is a conceptual scheme of artificial membranes synthesized by human-made hydrophilic and hydrophobic soft materials. Congratulations to the team!