An ECI Conference Series
April 9-13, 2026
Croatia
About This Conference
Nucleic Acid Therapeutics (NATs), including ASOs, siRNAs, PMOs, mRNA, Gene Therapy and Genome Editing, can precisely regulate, and potentially correct, gene expression in disease. As such, they can enable the development of novel therapeutic options for disease targets previously considered un-druggable by conventional small molecule and biologics means.
The NAT therapeutic revolution is upon us. While major advances and recent regulatory drug approvals have been made with liver, CNS and eye delivery, delivery outside of these tissues remains the bioengineering technological problem to solve. Even for the most advanced RNA conjugate clinical candidates less than 1% of the NAT cargo is escaping from the endosome. Likewise, using lipid nanoparticles, currently less than 5% of the NAT cargo is escaping from the endosome. It is widely recognized that there are significant gaps in our basic understanding of the mechanisms used by delivery vehicles for tropism, uptake and trafficking in vivo, endosomal escape and how-to best harness this knowledge to advance delivery for therapeutic use.
The ECI “Delivery of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics: Biology, Engineering and Development” conference will provide a forum for increasing our mechanistic understanding of the biological processes underpinning non-viral NAT delivery, including molecular and cellular biology, in vivo pharmacology and toxicology, rational optimization strategies, targeting, formulation, bioengineering and process development solutions for scale-up manufacturing, regulatory considerations and preclinical and clinical NAT programs.
The conference will bring together biologists, chemists, pharmacologists, biophysicists, drug developers, nanotechnologists, process engineers from academia and industry developing delivery strategies for the antisense, RNA interference, mRNA, Gene Therapy and Genome Editing, ex vivo and in vivo.
The conference will take in a resort on the water overlooking historic Siracusa, Sicily. To facilitate scientific interactions, the entire resort will be dedicated to the meeting. The meeting is limited to 125 participants.
The major topics to be discussed are:
- Nucleic acid chemical modifications and conjugates to enable and enhance delivery
- Liposomes and polymeric nanoparticle delivery vehicles
- Targeting
- Mechanisms of cellular uptake
- Enhancing endosomal escape
- Biophysical characterization methods
- NAT delivery vehicle toxicology and ADME
- Local and systemic NAT delivery case studies
The program will consist of >20 invited presentations and additional oral presentations will be chosen from submitted abstracts. There will also be poster presentations and awards.
Conference Organization
Conference Chairs
Steven F. Dowdy
UCSD School of Medicine
USA
Laura Sepp-Lorenzino
Intellia Therapeutics
USA
Matt Stanton
RA Ventures
USA
Previous Conferences in This Series
Oligonucleotide Delivery: Biology, Engineering and Development
October 7-11, 2012
Hernstein, Austria
Conference Chairs:
Laura Sepp-Lorenzino, Merck & Co., Inc., USA
Steve Dowdy, UCSD School of Medicine, USA
Delivery of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics II: Biology, Engineering and Development
April 4 – 8, 2024
Siracusa, Sicily, Italy
Conference Chairs:
Steve Dowdy, UCSD School of Medicine, USA|
Laura Sepp-Lorenzino, Intellia Therapeutics, USA
Matt Stanton, Generation Bio, USA
General Information about ECI
Engineering Conferences International (ECI) is a not-for-profit, global engineering conferences program, originally established in 1962 that provides opportunities for the exploration of problems and issues of concern to engineers and scientists from many disciplines.
The format of the conference provides morning and late afternoon or evening sessions in which major presentations are made. Poster sessions will be scheduled for evening discussion as well. Available time is included during the afternoons for ad hoc meetings, informal discussions, and/or recreation. This format is designed to enhance rapport among participants and promote dialogue on the development of the meeting. We believe the conferences have been instrumental in generating ideas and disseminating information to a greater extent than is possible through more conventional forums.
All participants are expected both to attend the entire conference and to contribute actively to the discussions. The recording/photographing of lectures and presentations is forbidden. As ECI conferences take place in an informal atmosphere, casual clothing is the usual attire.
Smoking is prohibited at ECI conferences and conference functions.