Drs. Gary Meints and Reza Sedaghat-Herati, chemistry faculty, recently published a paper. 

In their paper, entitled, “New Insights into the Interactions of a DNA Oligonucleotide with mPEGylated-PAMAM by Circular Dichroism and Solution NMR,” they explore DNA.  

About the paper 

This research is part of an ongoing process to develop new materials, called dendrimers, for gene therapy.  

Meints,  Sedaghat-Herati and their co-author Dr. X Dou, looked at how a short piece of DNA interacts with a specific dendrimer. 

“If we can identify details of the interaction, we can possibly use this information to enhance the process of gene transfer,” Meints said. 

The end goal is to make gene therapy easier and more accessible.  

“My background is in studying DNA with magnetic resonance (the same technology as MRI), but more to use it as way to examine fundamental properties and behaviors of DNA,” Meints said. “This project has been more on the applied science side.”   

In addition to the research, Meints enjoyed the collaboration. 

“It is nice to have such a productive, working collaboration with Dr. Reza Sedaghat-Herati,” Meints said.