Novel lipid-based nanoparticles for drug delivery

At Tufts School of Engineering, Professor Qiaobing Xu works at the intersection of materials science engineering and biomedical applications, seeking to develop new synthetic materials for the delivery of therapeutic biomacromolecules. His recent research projects include an mRNA-based cancer vaccine delivered directly into the lymphatic system and targeting gene therapy directly into the lungs – both of which build on his groundbreaking work on tiny lipid-based nanoparticles (LNPs).

Xu has been designing novel LNPs for genetic drug delivery since his postdoctoral studies, and he carried that work forward when he joined Tufts School of Engineering and established his own research group. In addition to teaching and conducting research as a professor of biomedical engineering at Tufts since 2010, he is now Scientific Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Hopewell Therapeutics, a biotechnology company established in 2021 with a differentiated lipid nanoparticle platform. Recently Hopewell announced seed financing of up to $25 million.

“The groundbreaking research and intellectual property in LNP design and delivery established by Professor Xu over the past decade provide a solid foundation for Hopewell to develop our own internal pipeline, initially targeting diseases of the lung, while concurrently exploring the potential of our ttLNP [tissue-targeted Lipid Nanoparticle] platform for patients with unmet needs in oncology, infectious diseases, rare genetic diseases, and neurological disorders,” says Dr. Louis Brenner, President and Chief Executive Officer of Hopewell Technologies.

“We continue to innovate and expand our ttLNP platform, which is approaching 1,000 unique ionizable lipids, and are developing LNPs with the potential to bring next generation genomic medicines to patients with high unmet medical needs,” says Xu.