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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 126 - 150 of 209
- Barron LG, Meyer KB, Szoka FC. Effects of complement depletion on the pharmacokinetics and gene delivery mediated by cationic lipid-DNA complexes. Hum Gene Ther. 1998 Feb 10; 9(3):315-23.
- Swaan PW, Szoka FC, Oie S. Molecular modeling of the intestinal bile acid carrier: a comparative molecular field analysis study. J Comput Aided Mol Des. 1997 Nov; 11(6):581-8.
- Tang MX, Szoka FC. The influence of polymer structure on the interactions of cationic polymers with DNA and morphology of the resulting complexes. Gene Ther. 1997 Aug; 4(8):823-32.
- Swaan PW, Hillgren KM, Szoka FC, Oie S. Enhanced transepithelial transport of peptides by conjugation to cholic acid. Bioconjug Chem. 1997 Jul-Aug; 8(4):520-5.
- Szoka FC. Many are probed, but few are chosen. Nat Biotechnol. 1997 Jun; 15(6):509.
- Felgner PL, Barenholz Y, Behr JP, Cheng SH, Cullis P, Huang L, Jessee JA, Seymour L, Szoka F, Thierry AR, Wagner E, Wu G. Nomenclature for synthetic gene delivery systems. Hum Gene Ther. 1997 Mar 20; 8(5):511-2.
- Wyman TB, Nicol F, Zelphati O, Scaria PV, Plank C, Szoka FC. Design, synthesis, and characterization of a cationic peptide that binds to nucleic acids and permeabilizes bilayers. Biochemistry. 1997 Mar 11; 36(10):3008-17.
- Maly DJ, Leonetti F, Backes BJ, Dauber DS, Harris JL, Craik CS, Ellman JA. Expedient solid-phase synthesis of fluorogenic protease substrates using the 7-amino-4-carbamoylmethylcoumarin (ACC) fluorophore. J Org Chem. 2002 Feb 08; 67(3):910-5.
- Nicol F, Nir S, Szoka FC. Effect of cholesterol and charge on pore formation in bilayer vesicles by a pH-sensitive peptide. Biophys J. 1996 Dec; 71(6):3288-301.
- Tang MX, Redemann CT, Szoka FC. In vitro gene delivery by degraded polyamidoamine dendrimers. Bioconjug Chem. 1996 Nov-Dec; 7(6):703-14.
- Zelphati O, Szoka FC. Mechanism of oligonucleotide release from cationic liposomes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1996 Oct 15; 93(21):11493-8.
- Zelphati O, Szoka FC. Intracellular distribution and mechanism of delivery of oligonucleotides mediated by cationic lipids. Pharm Res. 1996 Sep; 13(9):1367-72.
- Plank C, Mechtler K, Szoka FC, Wagner E. Activation of the complement system by synthetic DNA complexes: a potential barrier for intravenous gene delivery. Hum Gene Ther. 1996 Aug 01; 7(12):1437-46.
- Xu Y, Szoka FC. Mechanism of DNA release from cationic liposome/DNA complexes used in cell transfection. Biochemistry. 1996 May 07; 35(18):5616-23.
- van der Geest R, Hueber F, Szoka FC, Guy RH. Iontophoresis of bases, nucleosides, and nucleotides. Pharm Res. 1996 Apr; 13(4):553-8.
- Levy MY, Barron LG, Meyer KB, Szoka FC. Characterization of plasmid DNA transfer into mouse skeletal muscle: evaluation of uptake mechanism, expression and secretion of gene products into blood. Gene Ther. 1996 Mar; 3(3):201-11.
- Stull RA, Zon G, Szoka FC. An in vitro messenger RNA binding assay as a tool for identifying hybridization-competent antisense oligonucleotides. Antisense Nucleic Acid Drug Dev. 1996; 6(3):221-8.
- Meyer KB, Thompson MM, Levy MY, Barron LG, Szoka FC. Intratracheal gene delivery to the mouse airway: characterization of plasmid DNA expression and pharmacokinetics. Gene Ther. 1995 Sep; 2(7):450-60.
- Stull RA, Szoka FC. Antigene, ribozyme and aptamer nucleic acid drugs: progress and prospects. Pharm Res. 1995 Apr; 12(4):465-83.
- Hickman MA, Malone RW, Lehmann-Bruinsma K, Sih TR, Knoell D, Szoka FC, Walzem R, Carlson DM, Powell JS. Gene expression following direct injection of DNA into liver. Hum Gene Ther. 1994 Dec; 5(12):1477-83.
- Fattal E, Nir S, Parente RA, Szoka FC. Pore-forming peptides induce rapid phospholipid flip-flop in membranes. Biochemistry. 1994 May 31; 33(21):6721-31.
- Sixou S, Szoka FC, Green GA, Giusti B, Zon G, Chin DJ. Intracellular oligonucleotide hybridization detected by fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). Nucleic Acids Res. 1994 Feb 25; 22(4):662-8.
- Haensler J, Szoka FC. Polyamidoamine cascade polymers mediate efficient transfection of cells in culture. Bioconjug Chem. 1993 Sep-Oct; 4(5):372-9.
- Legendre JY, Szoka FC. Cyclic amphipathic peptide-DNA complexes mediate high-efficiency transfection of adherent mammalian cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1993 Feb 01; 90(3):893-7.
- Stull RA, Zon G, Szoka FC. Single-stranded phosphodiester and phosphorothioate oligonucleotides bind actinomycin D and interfere with tumor necrosis factor-induced lysis in the L929 cytotoxicity assay. Antisense Res Dev. 1993; 3(3):295-300.