The red blood cell (erythrocyte) has a well-characterised life cycle and biophysical properties, making it an ideal vehicle for therapeutic use.

Research to date in the use of red blood cells as delivery agents has focused on loading donor erythrocytes with drugs, encapsulating isolated erythrocyte membranes or functionalization of the red cell surface, all of which potentially can be detrimental to the biophysical properties of the erythrocyte.

This BrisSynBio project will utilize the red blood cell as platform to engineer cells with novel properties for clinical or pharmaceutical applications. We will do this by engineering changes into in vitro produced red blood cells, using human peripheral blood stem cells as a starting material. We have already shown that we can knock down multiple red blood cell proteins and also over express proteins tagged with green fluorescent proteins. The eventual aim will be to incorporate a range of natural and synthetic proteins into the membrane or cytosol, and thereby introduce novel functionality by influencing cell survival times, drug delivery, enzymatic reactions or storage capacity.

Project lead: Dr Ash Toye (erythrocyte biology, membrane protein trafficking, erythropoiesis, stem cell transduction and erythroid differentiation)

Project team: Dr Ross Anderson (protein design, redox biochemistry, kinetic spectroscopy); Dr Paul Race (polyketide synthesis, enzymology and structural biology); Professor David Anstee (erythrocyte biology, scale up of red blood cell production using bioreactors); Professor Ian Collinson (membrane protein chemistry, transport, bioenergetics); Dr Allison Blair (Leukemia drug treatment, mouse models) and Dr Richard Sessions (protein structure modelling)