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CBE Centennial Seminar Series: April Kloxin (Univ. of Delaware)
January 12 @ 9:30 am - 10:30 am
Abstract
Engineered microenvironments: From 3D culture models to biomanufacturing
The microenvironments that cells experience in the human body, which vary in structure, stiffness, and biochemical content, are instrumental in cell function and fate in disease processes, from scar tissue formation in the lungs that leads to fibrosis to the re-activation of dormant disseminated tumor cells that leads to the late cancer recurrence. Engineered, bioinspired culture systems provide great opportunities for both i) studying these complex processes for improved mechanistic understanding and drug evaluation and ii) exploiting known mechanisms for improved production of cell-based therapies. In this talk, I will highlight some of our recent efforts in this arena. Specifically, we have established reductionist synthetic extracellular matrices (ECMs) based on well-defined hydrogels and inspired by common sites of late recurrence (e.g., bone marrow, lungs). We have applied these ECMs in 3D cultures, along with a range of molecular tools, to dissect different cell-matrix and cell-cell interactions in breast cancer dormancy and re-activation. Additionally, for enhancing the production of cell therapies, we collaboratively have established a modular manufacturing platform that combines soft synthetic ECMs with commercial flow-based membrane devices for improved activation, expansion, and transduction of primary human T-cells. Together, our results demonstrate the great utility of soft biomaterials for addressing outstanding questions and needs for improving human health.
Biography
April M. Kloxin, Ph.D., is the Thomas and Kipp Gutshall Development Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering in the Departments of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Science and Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Delaware (UD), as well as a member of the Breast Cancer Research Program at the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center and Research Institute. She obtained her B.S. and M.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Boulder, as a NASA Graduate Student Research Program Fellow, and trained as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her multi-disciplinary group creates unique materials with multiscale property control and applies them in conjunction with other innovative molecular tools for addressing outstanding problems in human health, with a focus on understanding and targeting dynamic cell-microenvironment interactions in wound healing, fibrosis, and cancer and translational systems for manufacturing of cell-based therapies. She is a recipient of the 2022 Mid-Career Faculty Excellence in Scholarship Award at the University of Delaware, the 2019 Biomaterials Science Lectureship, a 2018 ACS PMSE Arthur K. Doolittle Award, a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Susan G. Komen Foundation Career Catalyst Research award, a NSF CAREER award, and a Pew Scholars in Biomedical Sciences award.