PhD Dissertation Defense: John Klich

Title: Immunomodulatory Biomaterials: From Vaccines to Cancer Immunotherapy
Abstract: The immunological processes underlying the world’s most burdensome diseases are complex in both space and time. Unfortunately, modern approaches to drug delivery often fail to recapitulate these tightly coordinated biological pathways, resulting in toxicities and limited efficacies. To overcome these limitations, next generation therapeutics must consider the “where” and “when” of drug delivery as critical engineering design parameters. In this thesis, I present two novel bioinspired hydrogel systems to enable locoregional and spatiotemporal control over the delivery of key immunostimulatory cargo. In the first half of my presentation, I discuss the development and use of multi-valent decorated liposomal-nanoparticle hydrogels (LNHs) to augment the breadth and durability of vaccine responses in a SARS-CoV-2 context. In the second half of my thesis, I utilize polymer-nanoparticle hydrogels (PNPs) to explore rational localization of cytokine and antibody combination immunotherapy for more potent anti-tumor activity. Together, my thesis demonstrates the development, characterization and application of biomimetic hydrogels as an immunoengineering platform to improve therapeutic outcomes for both vaccines and cancer immunotherapy.
Please contact Madelyn Bernstein for the Zoom link