Aptamers as therapeutics

Aptamers have a huge potential as therapeutic agents. They can be addressed to intracellular targets, to membrane components or to circulating molecules. They can be used as drug-delivery agents to cells of interest. They can be employed as antagonists (preventing a specific receptor-ligand interaction), or as agonists (binding to a receptor and activating a signal). Aptamers can be easily modified for improving their properties (making them more resistant to nucleases or increasing their in vivo half-life). They induce a minimal immune response in vivo. Several clinical trials are on-going.

Novaptech contributes to this field; see for instance : 

Millozzi, F., Milán-Rois, P., Sett, A., Delli Carpini, G., De Bardi, M., Gisbert-Garzarán, M., Sandonà, M., Rodríguez-Díaz, C., Martínez-Mingo, M., Pardo, I., Esposito, F., Viscomi, M. T., Bouché, M., Parolini, O., Saccone, V., Toulmé, J.-J., Somoza, Á., & Palacios, D. (2025). Aptamer-conjugated gold nanoparticles enable oligonucleotide delivery into muscle stem cells to promote regeneration of dystrophic muscles. Nature Communications, 16, Article 577.