University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

The United States Government As Represented by the Department of Veterans Affairs

Monell Chemical Senses Center

Robert J Lee

Leaf Huang

Danielle Reed

Noam A Cohen

The invention provides methods and compositions for the diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of respiratory tract diseases. Specifically, the invention provides diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of respiratory infections using bitter and sweet taste signal transduction pathways. In one aspect, the invention relates to a method for treating a respiratory infection by administering a composition to the respiratory tract of a subject in an amount capable of activating bitter taste signaling and/or inhibiting sweet taste signaling. The composition comprises at least a bitter receptor agonist and, optionally, a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier for delivering the composition to the respiratory tract. In another aspect, the invention relates to a composition for treatment of a respiratory infection. Such composition comprises at least a bitter receptor agonist and, optionally, a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier for delivering the composition to the respiratory tract.

Diagnosis and treatment for respiratory tract diseases

A simple, rapid method for creating a lipidic vector for delivery of a therapeutic molecule entails bringing the molecule into contact with a polycation, thereby forming a complex, and then mixing the complex with an anionic lipidic preparation. Tissue-specific targeting peptides, fusogenic peptides and nucleus-targeting peptides also can be added to the lipid preparation. The result is a stable lipidic vector of reduced immunogenicity and cytotoxicity. The vector also displays enhanced transfection activity.

Lipidic vector for nucleic acid delivery

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Pittsburgh, PA, United States of America

Robert J Lee