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Engineering Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Natural Killer Cells Targeting Fungal Infections Using the Non-viral Sleeping Beauty Transposon System
Published on: October 4, 2024
RNA-based therapeutics to treat human fungal infections
Alexander Bruch1, Abdulrahman A Kelani1, Matthew G Blango1
1Junior Research Group RNA Biology of Fungal Infections, Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology - Hans Knöll Institute (Leibniz-HKI), Jena, Germany.
Abstract:
In recent decades, RNA-based therapeutics have transitioned from a near impossibility to a compelling treatment alternative for genetic disorders and infectious diseases. The mRNA vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are truly groundbreaking, and new adaptations are already being proposed to fight other microbes. Unfortunately, the potential of RNA-based therapeutics to treat human fungal infections has remained mostly absent from the conversation, despite the fact that invasive fungal infections kill as many per year as tuberculosis and even more than malaria. Here, we argue that RNA-based therapeutics should be investigated for the treatment of human fungal infections and discuss several major roadblocks and potential circumventions that may allow for the realization of RNA-based therapies against human fungal pathogens.
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