Institute of
bioorganic chemistry

One-dimensional (1D) necklace-like assembly of inorganic nanoparticles exhibits unique chemical and physical collective properties. This review focuses on the recent advances in the production of these assemblies employing colloidal synthesis and self-assembly procedures. In the process of colloidal synthesis, both in solution and using templates, as well as under the action of external forces, highly ordered ensembles with unique properties are formed. Diverse nature, size and shape of preformed particles, along with utilizing different linkers, templates or external field lead to fabrication of 1D chain nanostructures with peculiar properties. The unique structure−property relationship offers broad spectrum of implementations, for example, in photonics, electronics, electrocatalysis, magnetics. This work was supported by RFBR project № 18-29-20064 and RSCF project № 21-75-30020 and was published in Advances in Colloid and Interface Science.

A team of scientists from the Laboratory of molecular immunology and Nursery for laboratory animals in collaboration with colleagues from other Russian institutes for the first time proposed the use of Barnase-Barstar pair as a «molecular glue». Targeting was mediated through the use of a scaffold protein DARPin_9–29 specific for the human epidermal receptor 2 (HER2) antigen that is highly expressed on some types of cancer and Barnase*Barstar native bacterial proteins interacted with each other with Kd 10-14 M. The results obtained indicate that the new system combining DARPin and Barnase*Barstar can be useful both for the drug development and for monitoring the response to treatment in vivo in preclinical studiesаа. This work was published in the Journal of Controlled Release. Learn more

Development of CAR-T therapy led to immediate success in the treatment of B cell leukemia. Manufacturing of therapy-competent functional CAR-T cells needs robust protocols for ex vivo/in vitro expansion of modified T-cells. In this work, a team of scientists from the IBCh RAS in collaboration with a group of scientists from Dmitry Rogachev National Medical Research Center and colleagues from the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University have created a new technology for the expansion of CAR T cells using artificial vesicles carrying surface tumor antigens. This approach will allow in the future to obtain CAR T-cells with improved functional properties and to minimize the level of premature "exhaustion" of the CAR T-cell population. This work was supported by Russian Scientific Foundation project No. 17-74-30019 and by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research grant No. 19-29-04087_mk and published in the Small journal. Learn more

The human ErbB3 receptor is an important pharmacological target in the treatment of various types of cancer. A variety of anti-ErbB3 monoclonal antibodies are currently in development and are classic immunoglobulins. However, the search for new sources of antibodies or nanoantibodies consisting only of the heavy chain is being conducted more and more actively. Thus, in this work, a team of scientists from the Laboratory of Biocatalysis of the IBCh RAS, together with colleagues from the Laboratory of Renewable Energy Sources of the Academic University discovered a group of new single-domain llama antibodies targeting the extracellular domain of ErbB3 using the phage display method. It was found that the single-domain antibodies are not only highly affine for various receptor epitopes, but also have an inhibitory effect on the growth of tumor cells expressing ErbB3. This work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (No. 0791-2020-0006) and ZAO Biocad and published in the journal Biomedicines. Learn more

A promising approach in tumor therapy is the use of T cells armed with the recombinant Chimeric T cell Receptors (CAR). Unfortunately, the CAR-T cell therapy is effective currently only for the treatment of hematologic malignancies. The major issue that limits practical usefulness of the CAR-T technology is cancer microenvironment, which suppresses activation of the CAR-T cells. A collaboration of scientists from IBCh RAS and other Russian and foreign institutes has modified T cells with CD19-CAR and reduced the expression PD-1 at the same time. Unexpectedly, despite increased activation of CAR-T cells with low level of PD-1, these T cells had reduced survival and diminished cytotoxicity. This work was supported by the Ministry Education and Science of the Russian Federation (Grant No. 075-15-2020-773) and published in Frontiers in molecular biosciences. Learn more