Our laboratory creates novel medical nanomachines/devices based on material engineering. Particularly, we have developed polymeric materials for drug and nucleic acid delivery. To realize the nucleic acid therapeutics, nucleic acids need to be efficiently delivered to the cytoplasm of target cells by overcoming various biological barriers. Smart polymeric materials that can exert the desired function in response to the biological microenvironment will enable the creation of nanomachines/devices for successful nucleic acid delivery.

1) H. S. Min, H. J. Kim, M. Naito, S. Ogura, K. Toh, K. Hayashi, B. S. Kim, S. Fukushima, Y. Anraku, K. Miyata, K. Kataoka, Systemic brain delivery of antisense oligonucleotides across the blood‐brain barrier with a glucose‐installed polymeric nanocarrier. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 59, 8173–8180 (2020).
2) H. J. Kim, S. Ogura, T. Otabe, R. Kamegawa, M. Sato, K. Kataoka, K. Miyata, Fine-tuning of hydrophobicity in amphiphilic polyaspartamide derivatives for rapid and transient expression of messenger RNA directed toward genome engineering in brain. ACS Cent. Sci. 5, 1866–1875 (2019).
3) S. Watanabe, K. Hayashi, K. Toh, H. J. Kim, X. Liu, H. Chaya, S. Fukushima, K. Katsushima, Y. Kondo, S. Uchida, S. Ogura, T. Nomoto, H. Takemoto, H. Cabral, H. Kinoh, H. Tanaka, M. R. Kano, Y. Matsumoto, H. Fukuhara, S. Uchida, M. Nangaku, K. Osada, N. Nishiyama, K. Miyata, K. Kataoka, In vivo rendezvous of small nucleic acid drugs with charge-matched block catiomers to target cancer. Nat. Commun. 10, 1894 (2019).
4) B. S. Kim, S. Chuanoi, T. Suma, Y. Anraku, K. Hayashi, M. Naito, H. J. Kim, I. C. Kwon, K. Miyata, A. Kishimura, K. Kataoka, Self-assembly of siRNA/PEG-b-catiomer at integer molar ratio into 100 nm-sized vesicular polyion complexes (siRNAsomes) for RNAi and codelivery of cargo macromolecules. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 141, 3699–3709 (2019).