Manfred Heinlein

Fellowship 2012

ARCHIVE

Manfred Heinlein obtained his PhD at the University of Cologne (1992) and after two years of research at the same University joined the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, for postdoctoral studies (1994-1997). Back in Europe, he became group leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute (FMI) in Basel (1997). When the FMI gave up plant research in 2003, he first became Swiss National Science Foundation Professor at the Botanical Institute of the University of Basel and then, in the same year, DR2 at the CNRS. Thus, since 2003, he is at the Institute de Biologie Moléculaire des Plantes (IBMP, CNRS UPR2357) leading the team “Macromolecular trafficking and intercellular communication in plants”.

Plant-derived peptides and nanovectors for the treatment and imaging of cancer

Post-docs: Sonia Boscá and Caroline Spenlé

This project combines research in plant virology, biophysics and cancer medicine to create plant virus-derived nanocarriers for the targeted and highly concentrated delivery of anti-cancer agents to cancer cells and to test their therapeutic activity against cancer in cell culture and tumor mouse models. Plant viruses like the well known Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) are all around us and do not cause diseases in humans. TMV particles can be mass-produced in plants or in vitro assembled and they are malleable to both chemical and genetic manipulation, allowing them to be tailored to a desired size and therapeutic use, without having the detrimental effects that non-plant viruses can cause .

The project will design particles functionalized with fluorescent molecules, specific anti-cancer peptides and other therapeutic agents, and test their applicability in cancer detection and treatment. In addition, the project will isolate a peptide responsible for the ability of a TMV-encoded protein to interfere with mammalian cell division. We believe that this peptide could be developed into a novel cytostatic cancer drug that could be applied in combination with other tumor targeting molecules exposed on the surface of the TMV nanocarrier.