I am a UWA Honours student, born and bred in Western Australia. Out of high school, I came to UWA to study chemistry and biochemistry. I am interested in the crossroads of these two fields—where they merge, to beautiful effect. In my third year of undergraduate studies, I signed up to do a project under Killugudi Swaminatha Iyer. This project centred around the synthesis of ‘dendrimers’; promising polymers which could potentially serve as gene delivery reagents. The Iyer lab frequently blurs the boundary between chemistry and biochemistry, and as such I found the group incredibly interesting. For my Honours, I have remained in the Iyer lab, and am looking to customise a library of dendronised polymers for the purposes of gene therapy in Dupuytren’s contracture patients.
Chemistry is amazing. I want to use it to help people—to advance the field of medicine, in this ever-changing world. With CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy beginning to emerge into the clinic, new mechanisms are necessary to deliver this technology into the nuclei of our cells. New mechanisms are necessary to deliver CRISPR across the cell’s phospholipid bilayer. New mechanisms are necessary to deliver it to the specific organs, where this therapy is desired. I believe chemistry can do just that. Iyer, my supervisor, and member of this ARC Training Centre, picked me out amongst the crowd of undergraduates for my unique experience in both chemistry and biochemistry. I was a ‘perfect fit for this lab,’ he said. Thus, as part of Iyer’s research group, I hope to use my skills in chemistry and biology to solve some of the world’s most important medical problems.
My Honours project is titled Developing Transfection Tools for Dupuytren’s Contracture. ‘Transfection’ is the act of introducing foreign genetic material into a eukaryotic cell—this is an incredibly important step for all forms of gene therapy. With CRISPR’s continual advancement into the clinic, new tools will be necessary to service its use across a wide range of diseases. Dupuytren’s contracture is a debilitating fibrotic skin condition which impedes proper use of the hand. Theoretically, CRISPR/Cas9 gene therapy could be applied to the skin in order to correct the genetic malfunctions responsible for this condition. My project wants to help make that happen. Owing to my experience in chemistry, the main arm of my project will be exploring a library of cationic polymers as transfection reagents. These are novel, star-shaped dendronised polymers which we hope will confer unique advantages in the transfection of human fibroblast cells. The Iyer lab is an incredibly interdisciplinary group, however, so we will also be exploring other, non-chemical methods for CRISPR delivery. The second method we will be exploring revolves around patches of nano-scale needles—’nanoneedles’—which are able to deliver DNA directly into a cell, with minimal harm. Our final method will take inspiration from the Covid-19 vaccines, and use an mRNA-based cargo to—we hope—deliver CRISPR with further ease. While I, personally, will chiefly be working with cells in a petri dish, we hope to prove that our transfection tools have the potential to be taken into actual Dupuytren’s contracture patients. Should this occur, we may have a hand in curing a debilitating fibrotic disorder, and will play a role in continuing CRISPR’s promising march into the clinic.
I hope to do many things. I hope to expand chemistry’s clinical use beyond the realm of small molecules. I hope to play a role in the development of revolutionary new therapies. I hope to advance CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, specifically; I want to see wide-scale clinical uptake, within the next decade. To do these things, I will need to work closely with both my fellow academics—and with industry partners. The ARC Training Centre, and their ability to coordinate resources between academic researchers and industry, will no doubt be key to my lofty goals.
I can speak Japanese!
