July Bulletin
Issue 82
Community Notices
Marble Center Distinguished Seminar Series: Prof. Gio Taverso
This month’s Marble Center seminar is on Monday July 17th, 4-5pm at the KI Luria Auditorium with a presentation by Prof. Giovanni (Gio) Traverso. The title of his talk is “Exploring Novel Strategies for GI-Based Drug Delivery.”
Dr. Traverso is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and also a gastroenterologist in the Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH), Harvard Medical School. Dr. Traverso grew up in Peru, Canada and the United Kingdom. He received his BA from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, UK, and his PhD from the lab of Prof. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins University. He subsequently completed medical school at the University of Cambridge, internal medicine residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and his gastroenterology fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital, both at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Traverso’s previous work focused on the development of novel molecular tests for the early detection of colon cancer. For his post-doctoral research, he transitioned to the fields of chemical and biomedical engineering in the laboratory of Professor Robert Langer at MIT where he developed a series of novel technologies for drug delivery as well as physiological sensing via the gastrointestinal tract.
His current research program is focused on developing the next generation of drug delivery systems to enable safe and efficient delivery of therapeutics, biomedical device to support new modes of drug administration and sensing a broad array of physiologic and pathophysiologic signals. Additionally, Dr. Traverso continues his efforts towards the development of novel diagnostic tests that enable the early detection of cancer.
Marble Center Annual Grant
Proposals for this year’s Marble Center RFP are due July 24, 2023. If you have any questions about the grant, please contact Tarek Fadel (tfadel@mit.edu).
AfroBioTech 2023 Abstracts Due July 14th!
The 4th AfroBiotech Conference will showcase the innovation, contributions and leadership from diverse disciplines that can advance biotechnology while also inspiring the next generation of diverse professionals and identifying, communicating, and exploring recent advancements in biotechnology. This conference is hosted by the Society for Biological Engineering through the American Institute for Chemical Engineers (AiChE) on October 22-24, 2023. For more information, contact Dr. Simone Douglas-Green (Simoned@mit.edu).
In the News
Vaccine delivers a boost to T cell therapy
A new vaccine boosts the response of engineered CAR-T cells and helps the immune system generate T cells that target other tumor antigens.
Engineering T cells to destroy cancer cells has shown success in treating some types of cancer, such as leukemia and lymphoma. However, it hasn’t worked as well for solid tumors. One reason for this lack of success is that the T cells target only one antigen (a target protein found on the tumors); if some of the tumor cells don’t express that antigen, they can escape the T cell attack.
MIT researchers have now found a way to overcome that obstacle, using a vaccine that boosts the response of engineered T cells, known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells, and also helps the immune system generate new T cells that target other tumor antigens. In studies in mice, the researchers found that this approach made it much more likely that tumors could be eradicated. “This vaccine boosting appears to drive a process called antigen spreading, wherein your own immune system collaborates with engineered CAR T cells to reject tumors in which not all of the cells express the antigen targeted by the CAR T cells,” says Darrell Irvine, the Underwood-Prescott Professor with appointments in MIT’s departments of Biological Engineering and of Materials Science and Engineering, and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard. Read more…
Dr. Joelle Straehla awarded the 2023 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund announced in June the recipients of the highly prestigious 2023 Career Awards for Medical Scientists. These awards, bestowed annually, recognize outstanding early-career researchers who have demonstrated exceptional promise in the field of medical science. A total of 12 exceptional individuals have been selected for their remarkable contributions to biomedical research and their potential to make significant advancements in the field. Dr. Joelle Straehla, Charles W. (1955) and Jennifer C. Johnson Clinical Investigator at the MIT Koch Institute, received the award for her work on Biologic regulators: a paradigm shift for cancer nanomedicine. Read more…
Jobs
Associate Professor, College of Pharmacy, University of Utah.
The University of Utah College of Pharmacy seeks excellent, diverse applicants for the Sung Wan Kim Chair in Drug and Gene Delivery in the Department of Molecular Pharmaceutics at the Associate Professor or Full Professor level. The Sung Wan Kim Chair in Drug and Gene Delivery is supported by an endowment honoring Dr. Sung Wan Kim, a pioneer in drug delivery and biomaterials research who was Distinguished Professor of Pharmaceutics and Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering until his untimely passing in 2020. Dr. Kim’s intent for the endowment was to support a leader in drug and gene delivery. Eligible candidates will have a Ph.D. and/or M.D., with a sustained record of peer reviewed funding, distinguished international reputation, and a substantial research and publication record in any of the following fields – drug and gene delivery, nanomedicine, gene therapy, molecular imaging and theranostics, biomedical engineering, immunology, cell biology, chemistry, biochemistry, or related fields. Opportunities exist for the successful candidates to align research areas with campus-wide initiatives such as immunology, inflammation and infectious diseases, diabetes and metabolism, neuroscience, genomic medicine, chemical biology, and cancer. The Department and the University of Utah offer unparalleled opportunities for interdisciplinary collaborations and actively encourage translational research with clinicians and scientists in the Health Sciences Center and the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Candidates must also be committed to teaching excellence in subjects relevant to both graduate (PhD) and professional (PharmD) programs in the College of Pharmacy. The preferred areas include but are not limited to drug and gene delivery, nanomedicine, gene therapy, molecular imaging, theranostics, immunology, cell biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. Read more…
Senior Scientist, Delivery of Intracellular Biologics, AstraZeneca.
The Drug Delivery team is a part of the Dosage Form Design and Development group of Biopharmaceutical Development. The Drug Delivery team’s purpose is to improve patients’ lives by ensuring AstraZeneca’s therapies are as safe, effective, and convenient as possible using technologies that target delivery of medicines to the site of action and optimize their effective half-life. Our scientists drive innovative cross-disciplinary approaches for realizing such technologies and provide leadership from early research through CMC activities. A suitable candidate will help drive and support technological innovation in the development/assessment of nanoparticle-based vehicles for nucleic acid delivery toward realizing the potential of In Vivo Expressed Biologics. Read more…
Funding opportunities
| Funding Source | Grant ID | Deadline | Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research: Seed Grants | N/A | August 15, 2023 | Michelson Philanthropies and Science: Prize for Immunology | N/A | October 1, 2023 |
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