We are pleased to announce a newly awarded two-year D2R Foundational Project grant to Drs. Larry Lands and Darcy Wagner (co-Investigators) and team for the project “Small-Scale Mutation Repair in Primary Ciliary Dyskinesia using mRNA Therapeutics.” (Lead PI: Caroline Wagner).
Building on over three decades of research on the TC-PTP (PTPN2) gene, this project aims to develop a novel mRNA-based therapeutic platform to precisely modulate immune responses. The team will engineer antibody fragments that can either inhibit or activate TC-PTP inside cells and deliver them using lipid nanoparticle mRNA technology. In preclinical models, TC-PTP inhibitors will be explored for cancer immunotherapy, while activators will be evaluated in inflammatory conditions such as colitis.
This innovative approach lays the groundwork for next-generation intracellular mRNA immunotherapies, with broad implications for immune-mediated diseases.
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Foundational Projects | Cycle 2. The Foundational Projects funding program supports high-risk, early-stage projects with the potential to be game-changers in the fields of D2R’s areas of interest. Nov 6, 2026. D2R News.
Principal Investigator: Caroline Wagner (McGill University)
Co-Investigator(s): Khanh Huy Bui (McGill University), Larry Lands (McGill University), Adam Shapiro (McGill University), Darcy Wagner (McGill University)