IMAGE: Penn State
“He has exploited these discoveries to develop a truly novel and intriguing technology for the delivery of therapeutic proteins to cells, which has the potential to revolutionize protein delivery.”
Schmitt’s research focuses on understanding viral and host protein interactions that contribute to the formation of paramyxovirus particles and developing new strategies to exploit these interactions and inhibit virus replication.
In recent years, his research group discovered a way to manipulate virus-like particles so that they will package any protein of interest as cargo. This finding led to the development of a new protein delivery technology in which therapeutic proteins, such as CRISPR enzymes, are incorporated into virus-like particles, which then deliver the contents to the cytoplasms of target cells.