Ling Peng

Activity

dendrimers, drug delivery, nanobiotechnology, nanomedicine

Thèmes

1. Intelligent functional biomaterials for drug deliery based on dendrimer nanotechnology  

2. Molecular probes and chemical biology

3. Drug discovery based on triazole nucleoside chemistry

Recherche

Functional and intelligent biomaterials based on dendrimer nanotechnology: In order to treat various life-threatening diseases such as cancer, infection and neurodegenerative dementia, it is essential to develop efficient systems which enable precise diagnosis and effective treatment of diseases by delivering the right agents at the right sites with the right doses and timing. Dendrimers are the ideal delivery systems by virtue of their uniquely well-defined and precisely controlled structure with multivalent cooperativity confined within a nanosized volume. We are developing functional biocompatible dendrimer materials for bioimaging-based diagnosis, cancer treatment and gene therapy.

Molecular probes and chemical biology: Molecular probes are useful tools to study and understand biological events. We have designed and synthesized various molecular probes of phospholipids and of 2-oxoglutarate, an important intermediate of the Kreb’s cycle, with a view to studying biomembranes and the signaling roles and pathways of Kreb’s cycle intermediates in nitrogen fixation and cancer development.

Drug discovery based on triazole nucleoside chemistry: Nucleoside mimics are of great importance in the search for antiviral, anticancer and antibacterial drug candidates. One noteworthy example is ribavirin, the first synthetic triazole nucleoside showing antiviral activity against a broad spectrum of viruses. We have developed novel triazole nucleoside derivatives using modern green chemistry. Some of the lead compounds have shown excellent potency against drug-resistant cancers with novel modes of action such as targeting the heat shock response pathway, inducing autophagy and eliciting an immunomodulation effect etc.

Parcours

Dr. Ling Peng is a research director at the French National Scientific Research Center (CNRS) in France. She carried her undergraduate study in polymer chemistry with Prof. Chen Rongshi at Nanjing University in China, her PhD program in organic chemistry with Prof. Albert Eschenmoser at Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, and her postdoctoral research in Pharmacy with Prof. Maurice Goeldner at Louis Pasteur University of Strasbourg in France. She was recruited as a research scientist in CNRS in 1997, promoted as a CNRS research director in 2008, and then 1st class Research Director in 2015.

Dr. Ling PENG has been working actively at the interface of chemistry and biology, and in particular, developing functional dendrimers for biomedical applications, molecular probes for exploring biological events and nucleoside analogues for drug discovery. She has established bio-inspired structurally flexible dendrimers for nucleic acid delivery. Recently, she has inaugurated the concept of self-assembling supramolecular dendrimers, and applied this concept to deliver various anticancer drugs, nucleic acid therapeutics and imaging agents for cancer treatment and imaging. Her research team has been labelled by La Ligue contre Le Cancer in France since 2016.

Dr. Ling PENG was awarded with the Prize of Dr & Mme Henri Labbé of the French Academy of Sciences in 2017 and the Distinguished Member of French Chemical Society in 2020.

Selected Publications:

1.    Chen J, Zhu D, Liu X, Peng L, “Amphiphilic dendrimer vectors for RNA delivery: state-of-the-art and future perspective”, Acc. Mater. Res. 2022, 3, 5, 484-497.

2.    Xiong Y, Ke R, Zhang Q, Lan W, Yuan W, Chan KNI, Roussel T, Jiang Y, Wu J, Liu S, Wong AST, Shim JS, Zhang X, Xie RY, Dusetti N, Iovanna J, Habib N, Peng L, Lee LTO, “Small activating RNA modulation of the G protein-coupled receptor for cancer treatment”, Adv. Sci. 2022, 2200562.

3.    Chen J, Ellert-Miklaszewska A, Garofalo S, Dey AK, Tang J, Jiang Y, Clément F, Marche PN, Liu X, Kaminska B, Santoni A, Limatola C, Rossi J, Zhou J, Peng L, “Synthesis and use of an amphiphilic dendrimer for siRNA delivery into primary immune cells”, Nat. Protoc. 2021, 16, 327.

4.    Lyu Z, Ding L, Tintaru A, Peng L, “Self-assembling supramolecular dendrimers for biomedical applications: lessons learned from poly(amido)amine dendrimers”, Acc. Chem. Res. 2020, 53, 2936.

5.    Garrigue P, Tang J, Ding L, Bouhlel A, Tintaru A, Laurini E, Huang Y, Lyu Z, Zhang M, Fernandez S, Balasse L, Lan W, Mas E, Marson D, Weng Y, Liu X, Giorgio S, Iovanna J, Pricl S, Guillet B, Peng L, “Self-assembling supramolecular dendrimer nanosystem for PET imaging of tumors”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2018, 115, 11454

6.    Dong Y, Yu T, Ding L, Laurini E, Huang Y, Zhang M, Weng Y, Lin S, Chen P, Marson D, Jiang Y, Giorgio S, Pricl S, Liu X, Rocchi P, Peng L, “A dual targeting dendrimer-mediated siRNA delivery system for effective gene silencing in cancer therapy”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 16264.

7.    Liu X, Wang Y, Chen C, Tintaru A, Cao Y, Liu J, Ziarelli F, Tang J, Guo H, Rosas R, Giorgio S, Charles L, Rocchi P, Peng L, “A fluorinated bola-amphiphilic dendrimer for on-demand delivery of siRNA via specific response to reactive oxygen species”, Adv. Funct. Mater. 2016, 26, 8594.

8.    Wei T, Chen C, Liu J, Liu C, Posocco P, Liu X, Cheng Q, Huo S, Liang Z, Fermeglia M, Pricl S, Liang XJ, Rocchi P, Peng L, “Anticancer drug nanomicelles formed by self-assembling amphiphilic dendrimer to combat cancer drug resistance”, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 2015, 112, 2978.

9.    Liu X, Zhou J, Yu T, Chen C, Cheng Q, Sengupta K, Huang Y, Li H, Liu C, Wang Y, Posocco P, Wang M, Cui Q, Giorgio S, Fermeglia M, Qu F, Pricl S, Shi Y, Liang Z, Rocchi P, Rossi JJ, Peng L, “Adaptive amphiphilic dendrimer based nanoassemblies as robust and versatile siRNA delivery systems”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2014, 53, 11822.

10. Yu T, Liu X, Bolcato-Bellemin A-L, Wang Y, Liu C, Erbacher P, Qu F, Rocchi P, Behr J-P, Peng L, "An amphiphilic dendrimer for effective siRNA delivery and gene silencing in vitro and in vivo", Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2012, 51, 8478.