Nicola Philpott, Division of Rheumatic and Autoimmune Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota

Research Interests of Dr Nicola Philpott:

Viral vectors are very efficient gene transfer tools and are currently being used in many gene therapy trials for the treatment of hereditary disease, infectious diseases and cancer. Long term expression of a transgene often requires integration of the gene into the human genome however random insertion can lead to adverse side effects. Dr Philpott is interested in improving the safety of gene therapy vectors by blocking random integration and targeting integration to specific, safe sites within the genome. She is developing adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors that integrate into a specific site within the human genome that is not associated with any pathogenicity. As well as elucidating the mechanism of AAV Rep-mediated integration, Dr Philpott is using this targeted integration strategy to achieve stable transgene expression in dividing cells for gene therapy. Dr Philpott also has an interest in the development of non-integrating lentiviral vectors for stable gene delivery to non-dividing cells towards the treatment of genetic disease in post-mitotic tissue.

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Last modified on Thursday Mar 06, 2008

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