Volkmar Weissig
World Mitochondria Society, USA
Title: Mitochondria-targeted nano drug delivery systems
Biography
Biography: Volkmar Weissig
Abstract
The efficiency and efficacy of drug action depends largely on how well an unaided drug molecule is able to reach its intracellular target or even its target inside organelles such as mitochondria. Subsequently, the specific delivery of a drug to its site of action inside cells will dramatically improve its action. Mitochondria play a key role in apoptosis and several clinically used as well as experimental drugs are known to trigger apoptosis by directly interacting with target site at or inside mitochondria. A random observation at the laboratory bench has helped pave the way towards the development of organelle-targeted pharmaceutical nanocarriers. A fortuitous discovery in the mid-1990s involving the self-assembly of a molecule, known to accumulate inside mitochondria, has led to the development of subcellular nanocarriers suited for the selective delivery of biological active molecules to mitochondria inside living mammalian cells. In this presentation, applications for mitochondria-specific drug and DNA delivery will be described, the current state-of-the-art of mitochondrial drug targeting technology will be reviewed and its future perspective shall be discussed.
