The Laboratory of Gene Therapy (LGT) mainly focuses on the design and preclinical evaluation of mRNA therapeutics for treating cancer, infectious diseases and other disorders. In more detail, we work on the design and preclinical evaluation of mRNA therapeutics encoding antigens (from tumor cells, viruses or bacteria), cytokines (e.g. IL-12), antibodies or other therapeutic proteins. For the design of our mRNA therapeutics we also make use of synthetic biology devices to make “smart” mRNA therapeutics. The targeted delivery of drugs to tumors or other tissues is another topic within this group. The team also focuses on pets with cancer. Dogs, cats and horses spontaneously develop tumors with histopathological and biological features similar to human tumors. By evaluating promising new cancer therapies in these pets we hope to contribute to the development of new anticancer drugs for both veterinary and human patients afflicted with cancer.