Nanotechnology Community

Francis C. Szoka Jr. Ph.D.

Emeritus Professor of Bioengineering, Therapeutic Sciences and Pharmaceutical Chemistry. University of California/San Francisco

Dr. Szoka Is an in-resident scientist at ZoneOne Pharma Inc. and a Professor Emeritus of Bioengineering, Therapeutic Science & Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco. He received a BA from Johns Hopkins University (1965), ran a clinical chemistry laboratory while in the army from 1969 to 1971 and received a PhD in biochemistry from SUNY/Buffalo (1976). In his academic career he mentored numerous scholars and with group members published over 230 manuscripts in biophysics and drug/gene delivery using liposomes, polymers and proteins. He is the founding director of the UCSF pharmaceutics graduate program and a founder of three companies; one, Sequus in 1995, introduced liposome encapsulated doxorubicin (Doxil™) for the treatment of ovarian carcinoma.

"Liposomes- from the laboratory to the clinic"

It has been sixty-one years since the first description of a liposome by Alec Bangham (1) and due to the success of Lipid Nanoparticle (LNP) mRNA Covid vaccines, there has been a resurgence of interest in lipid based drug delivery. Until the vaccine breakthrough, liposomes that deliver anticancer or antimicrobial drugs, approved by the FDA in the 1990s, were a modest commercial success. Their success depended upon a better understanding of the biophysics of lipids, the invention of new methods for drug encapsulation, the introduction of lipids not found in nature and a more detailed understanding of how nanoparticles are processed in the body and in cells. For specific compounds, liposomes or LNPs, overcome pharmacokinetic or pharmacodynamic obstacles for their delivery. For those unfamiliar with the history of this field, I will very briefly review the contributions of the liposome pioneers. I will then describe advances with lipid nanomedicines from various groups over the past decade in three areas: 1) tissue/tumor penetration of liposomes 2) the delivery of multiple drugs in the same liposome, and 3) drug encapsulation of sparingly soluble drugs ito liposomes and their antitumor properties using carfilzomib as a an example.

 1. Bangham, A. D.; Horne, R. W. (1964). "Negative Staining of Phospholipids and Their Structural Modification by Surface-Active Agents As Observed in the Electron Microscope". Journal of Molecular Biology. 8 (5): 660–668.