Dear PhD Students,



The Department of Bioengineering will have their fifth seminar of the semester on Thursday, November 3, presented by Dr. Blanka Sharma of the University of Florida in Research Hall, 163, from 12:00-1:00p.m. Her topic is "Translational Biomaterials for Regenerative Medicine and Cancer Therapy." The flyer is attached & her abstract is below.


Abstract:

Biomaterials have the potential to improve therapeutic options for a wide range of clinical problems. Our lab works on developing three-dimensional scaffolds and targeted drug delivery systems for applications in both regenerative medicine and cancer. The first part of this talk will focus on cartilage repair and osteoarthritis (OA), and will describe how our experience in the clinic has shaped our current projects, in a "bench-to-bedside-to-bench" transition. Despite decades of effort, disease-modifying therapies for osteoarthritis remain elusive. We will present our work in the development of drug delivery systems that target cells and tissues within the joint by exploiting specific nanoparticle-ECM interactions. The long-term goal of this work is to improve efficacy and synergy of OA drugs while minimizing dose and off-target effects. The second part of this talk will focus on our work in cancer, and will describe the development of tissue engineered tumors to study natural killer cell-cancer cell interactions central to immune evasion in cancer in order to guide the development of cancer immunotherapies. Modulation of immune and stem cells are key to both regenerative medicine and cancer progression, and our group works at the intersection of these fields.


Amanda Moon

Academic Program Assistant

Bioengineering Department

703-993-5846 (3-5846)