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Francis Szoka, PhD
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Professor, School of Pharmacy
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Email: frank.szoka@ucsf.edu
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Biography
The Szoka group applies chemical, biophysical and molecular biology approaches to devise vaccine, drug and nucleic acid delivery systems to treat cancer or infectious diseases. These systems can incorporate lipids, peptides, polymers and proteins. These drug carriers are composed of lipids, polymers, peptides or proteins. His group has extensively investigated the role of lipids in membrane fusion and his designed, synthesized and studied the mechanism of fusogenic peptides. With group members, he has published over 220 manuscripts and has received 35 U.S. patents. One FDA approved drug product Amphotec™ and one biotechnology product Superfect™ have been commercialized from the patents. In addition to his University commitments, Dr. Szoka is a founder of Sequus Pharmaceuticals, Inc., GeneMedicine, Inc., and ZoneOne Pharma, Inc. Sequus introduced sterically stabilized liposomes for anti-cancer drug delivery (Doxil™).
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Displaying 76 - 100 of 209
- Lee CC, Cramer AT, Szoka FC, Fréchet JM. An intramolecular cyclization reaction is responsible for the in vivo inefficacy and apparent pH insensitive hydrolysis kinetics of hydrazone carboxylate derivatives of doxorubicin. Bioconjug Chem. 2006 Sep-Oct; 17(5):1364-8.
- Ruhela D, Riviere K, Szoka FC. Efficient synthesis of an aldehyde functionalized hyaluronic acid and its application in the preparation of hyaluronan-lipid conjugates. Bioconjug Chem. 2006 Sep-Oct; 17(5):1360-3.
- Li W, Szoka FC. Bioresponsive targeted charge neutral lipid vesicles for systemic gene delivery. CSH Protoc. 2006 Jun 01; 2006(1).
- Huang Z, Guo X, Li W, MacKay JA, Szoka FC. Acid-triggered transformation of diortho ester phosphocholine liposome. J Am Chem Soc. 2006 Jan 11; 128(1):60-1.
- Lee CC, MacKay JA, Fréchet JM, Szoka FC. Designing dendrimers for biological applications. Nat Biotechnol. 2005 Dec; 23(12):1517-26.
- Huynh GH, Deen DF, Szoka FC. Barriers to carrier mediated drug and gene delivery to brain tumors. J Control Release. 2006 Jan 10; 110(2):236-259.
- Lee CC, Yoshida M, Fréchet JM, Dy EE, Szoka FC. In vitro and in vivo evaluation of hydrophilic dendronized linear polymers. Bioconjug Chem. 2005 May-Jun; 16(3):535-41.
- Gillies ER, Dy E, Fréchet JM, Szoka FC. Biological evaluation of polyester dendrimer: poly(ethylene oxide) "bow-tie" hybrids with tunable molecular weight and architecture. Mol Pharm. 2005 Mar-Apr; 2(2):129-38.
- Huang Z, Li W, MacKay JA, Szoka FC. Thiocholesterol-based lipids for ordered assembly of bioresponsive gene carriers. Mol Ther. 2005 Mar; 11(3):409-17.
- Tang MX, Li W, Szoka FC. Toroid formation in charge neutralized flexible or semi-flexible biopolymers: potential pathway for assembly of DNA carriers. J Gene Med. 2005 Mar; 7(3):334-42.
- Choi SJ, Sperinde JJ, Szoka FC. Identification of a deoxyribonuclease I inhibitor from a phage-peptide library. Mol Cells. 2005 Feb 28; 19(1):54-9.
- MacKay JA, Deen DF, Szoka FC. Distribution in brain of liposomes after convection enhanced delivery; modulation by particle charge, particle diameter, and presence of steric coating. Brain Res. 2005 Feb 28; 1035(2):139-53.
- Li W, Huang Z, MacKay JA, Grube S, Szoka FC. Low-pH-sensitive poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG)-stabilized plasmid nanolipoparticles: effects of PEG chain length, lipid composition and assembly conditions on gene delivery. J Gene Med. 2005 Jan; 7(1):67-79.
- Cohen RN, Rashkin MJ, Wen X, Szoka FC. Molecular motors as drug delivery vehicles. Drug Discov Today Technol. 2005; 2(1):111-8.
- Li W, Nicol F, Szoka FC. GALA: a designed synthetic pH-responsive amphipathic peptide with applications in drug and gene delivery. Adv Drug Deliv Rev. 2004 Apr 23; 56(7):967-85.
- Eliaz RE, Nir S, Marty C, Szoka FC. Determination and modeling of kinetics of cancer cell killing by doxorubicin and doxorubicin encapsulated in targeted liposomes. Cancer Res. 2004 Jan 15; 64(2):711-8.
- Guo X, Huang Z, Szoka FC. Improved preparation of PEG-diortho ester-diacyl glycerol conjugates. Methods Enzymol. 2004; 387:147-52.
- Eliaz RE, Nir S, Szoka FC. Interactions of hyaluronan-targeted liposomes with cultured cells: modeling of binding and endocytosis. Methods Enzymol. 2004; 387:16-33.
- Sonawane ND, Szoka FC, Verkman AS. Chloride accumulation and swelling in endosomes enhances DNA transfer by polyamine-DNA polyplexes. J Biol Chem. 2003 Nov 07; 278(45):44826-31.
- Guo X, Szoka FC. Chemical approaches to triggerable lipid vesicles for drug and gene delivery. Acc Chem Res. 2003 May; 36(5):335-41.
- Swanson B, Savel R, Szoka F, Sawa T, Wiener-Kronish J. Development of a high throughput Pseudomonas aeruginosa epithelial cell adhesion assay. J Microbiol Methods. 2003 Mar; 52(3):361-6.
- Choi JS, MacKay JA, Szoka FC. Low-pH-sensitive PEG-stabilized plasmid-lipid nanoparticles: preparation and characterization. Bioconjug Chem. 2003 Mar-Apr; 14(2):420-9.
- Guo X, MacKay JA, Szoka FC. Mechanism of pH-triggered collapse of phosphatidylethanolamine liposomes stabilized by an ortho ester polyethyleneglycol lipid. Biophys J. 2003 Mar; 84(3):1784-95.
- Mackay JA, Szoka FC. HIV TAT Protein Transduction Domain Mediated Cell Binding and Intracellular Delivery of Nanoparticles. J Dispers Sci Technol. 2003; 24(3):465-473.
- Bronich TK, Ouyang M, Kabanov VA, Eisenberg A, Szoka FC, Kabanov AV. Synthesis of vesicles on polymer template. J Am Chem Soc. 2002 Oct 09; 124(40):11872-3.