HOUSTON – (Jan. 20, 2026) – Gene-based therapies such as genome editing hold promise for treating a wide range of diseases, from inherited blood disorders to conditions affecting the heart, lungs and brain. However, delivering large DNA constructs to specific cells in the body continues to be a challenge both because the right tools are lacking and due to the potential immune responses.
With support from the W.M. Keck Foundation, Rice University bioengineers Gang Bao and Caleb Bashor are leading a project focused on that challenge. Their work will explore how biological systems derived from nature can be engineered to deliver long-form genetic instructions for the expression of critical proteins and genome modification to target tissues in living organisms.
Many of the most powerful genetic blueprints encoding protein machines are simply too big to fit inside current delivery vehicles. To arrive and be expressed in the right cells, these large genetic payloads need to be transported by a delivery “vehicle” equipped with the right target-recognition tools. In this case, the project focuses on delivery vectors whose envelope surface displays multiple protein factors, with the aim of engineering optimized combinations of factors that enable highly precise and efficient delivery.
Rather than testing one design at a time, the research team will build large libraries of delivery vehicles, each displaying different combinations of surface molecules. Next, the researchers will test these systems by specifically targeting five types of tissues, including lung, brain, bone marrow, heart and endothelium, a specialized tissue found in blood vessels and the lymphatic system. Using advanced screening techniques, the team will track which design works best.
“If we can optimize the combination of factors to allow for precise and effective control over where these larger and more complex DNA payloads are delivered in the body, the potential impact on gene-based therapies would be transformative,” said Bao, Rice’s Foyt Family Professor of Bioengineering, professor of chemistry, mechanical engineering and materials science and nanoengineering and a Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas Scholar.
Better delivery could make it possible to study diseases more accurately, reprogram malfunctioning cells and one day treat conditions that currently have few treatment options. The work aligns with the Keck Foundation’s focus on bold, high-risk research that challenges existing paradigms and has the potential to reshape entire fields.
About the W.M. Keck Foundation:
The W.M. Keck Foundation was established in 1954 in Los Angeles by William Myron Keck, founder of The Superior Oil Co. One of the nation’s largest philanthropic organizations, the W.M. Keck Foundation supports outstanding science, engineering and medical research. The foundation also supports undergraduate education and maintains a program within Southern California to support arts and culture, education, health and community service projects.
About Rice:
Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Texas, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of architecture, business, continuing studies, engineering and computing, humanities, music, natural sciences and social sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. Internationally, the university maintains the Rice Global Paris Center, a hub for innovative collaboration, research and inspired teaching located in the heart of Paris. With 4,776 undergraduates and 4,104 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 7 for best-run colleges by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by the Wall Street Journal and is included on Forbes’ exclusive list of “New Ivies.”