# Rational Design of Oral Drugs Targeting Mucosa Delivery

> **NIH NIH R21** · IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY · 2024 · $191,250

## Abstract

1. PROJECT SUMMARY
 Oral drug delivery via the gut mucosa is considered more patient-friendly than an intravenous infusion or
subcutaneous injection regarding induction of treatment. The practical advantages include reduced need for
trained medical personnel, cost efficiency, and increased safety. While progress has been made increasing
stability and innate activation of potential orally delivered mucosal drugs, significant knowledge gaps exist at the
intercellular and intracellular levels, which leaves poor understanding of the specific and non-specific factors
determining recognition and transport of drug candidates across the intestinal epithelia. Furthermore,
understanding how nanoparticles-based oral drug delivery systems transport through intestinal epithelium and
how the transport behavior can be manipulated through surface modification to create guided transport pathways
through intestinal epithelium will provide fundamental and essential knowledge on future design and
development of effective drug delivery systems for oral administration. Thus, there is an urgent need to fill these
gaps in learning because the intercellular and organ level interactions and resultant biological influences are
critical for precise control of nanoparticles-based oral drug delivery systems targeting intestinal mucosa and
mucosal-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT). My long-term goal is to study and rationally design nanoparticles-
based oral drug delivery systems to treat inflammatory and infectious diseases. My overall objective in this project
is to determine how artificial virus-like nanoparticles (AVNs) based drug delivery systems target and transport
within a gut mucosal immunological model. My central hypothesis is that the mammalian orthoreovirus cell
attachment protein σ1 (MRV σ1) functionalized polymeric AVNs will target delivery through induced M-cells to
MALT cells in the intestinal epithelium ex vivo and in vivo. The rationale for the proposed research is that in-
depth knowledge of the parameters determining recognition and transport of nanoparticles across the intestinal
epithelia and guided vehicle of oral drug delivery in vivo will be gleaned. The harvested knowledge will further
equip us to understand genetic changes of intestinal stem cells (ISCs) and MALT cells during reprogramming
progression and offer new insights to develop orally available drug delivery strategies to treat inflammatory and
infectious diseases. If it is successful, my strategy would be instrumental in developing precise and efficient
methods and formulas for producing rationally designed oral drugs for clinical applications, thereby
fundamentally advancing the fields of oral drug delivery.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10843780
- **Project number:** 5R21EB032991-03
- **Recipient organization:** IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Qun Wang
- **Activity code:** R21 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $191,250
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-08-18 → 2026-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10843780

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10843780, Rational Design of Oral Drugs Targeting Mucosa Delivery (5R21EB032991-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10843780. Licensed CC0.

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