Dr. Simon Drescher, PRC Heidelberg
The Phospholipid Research Center Heidelberg (PRC) organized its first “International Online Symposium on Phospholipids in Pharmaceutical Research” on September 14, 2021.
Phospholipid Research Center
Founded in 2006 with generous support from Lipoid GmbH and Phospholipid GmbH, the PRC is dedicated to exploring and exploiting the full potential of phospholipids by promoting research into new and optimized applications for phospholipids, with a focus on developing new and improved dosage forms for pharmaceutical use.
With over 250 registered participants from all over the world covering both academia and industry and 19 inspirational talks, this event brought leading international scientists in the fields of targeted drug delivery, lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), gene therapy, and liposome research together.
Phospholipids and Covid-19 vaccines
The presentations by Prof. Pieter Cullis and Dr. Dominik Witzigmann received particularly great attention. These contributions comprised LNPs and their role in gene therapies and the role of “helper lipids” (phospholipids and cholesterol) in the design of LNP technology for nucleic acid delivery. And while current Covid-19 vaccines based on LNP/mRNA technology (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) will certainly help to end the pandemic, the full potential of this new therapeutic option is far from being realized. The PRC will therefore provide support and is optimistic that new generations of these therapeutics can be launched in the future.