SBIR-STTR Award

Antisense oligonucleotide technology offers a very unique form of drug therapy; however, one of the problems facing this technology is the difficulty which these types of molecules have in penetrating biological membranes to get to their site of action. Our long term objectives are to develop glycosteroid-oligonucleotide therapies across biological membranes thus making antisense technology a more effective and real form of drug therapy. The specific aim of this work will be to conjugate bis-glycosylated steroid membrane replication with the possibility of developing an effective anti-HIV drug therapy. This conjugation will be accomplished by attaching to the 5' - or 3' terminus of either the antisense splice acceptor or primer binding site steroid via a linker to the steroid C-17 side chain. The ability of these new development of a technology which would reliably deliver antisense oligonucleotides both across cellular and mucosal membranes would provide effective new drugs.National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)