The Wyss Institute at Harvard Universtiy and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have entered a licensing and collaboration agreement with Novartis to develop our biomaterial systems to delivery next generation immunotherapies. Our approach uses an injectable or implantable biomaterial scaffold that recruits and trains the body's endogenous immune cells to identify and kill a patient's own cancerous cells. A big congratulations to Dave, Omar, and team! We've still got a lot of work to do.

For more information on our technology, please have a look at the immunotherapy research section. 

To view the Novartis press release, click here.

Photo credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University

Congrats to Aileen and team on their recent publication which looked at using polyethyleneimine (PEI) in mesoporous silica rod (MSR) vaccines to enhance antigen immunogenicity. The MSR-PEI vaccine substantially improved therapeutic outcomes in three challenging tumor models while enabling the presentation of large sets of neoantigens and synergizing with checkpoint blockade therapy. Check out their work here: A facile approach to enhance antigen response for personalized cancer vaccination.

Congrats to Ting and Jianyu on their recent publications in Advanced Healthcare Materials. Ting's article explored using injectable, tough alginate cryogels as prophylactic cancer vaccines and Jianyu's article explored using tough composite hydrogels to enable high loading and sustained release of biological payloads. Check out their work here:

Injectable, Tough Alginate Cryogels as Cancer Vaccines

Tough Composite Hydrogels with High Loading and Local Release of Biological Drugs

A big congrats to recent PhD graduate Max Darnell, who is headed to Georg Seelig's quantiative biology lab at the University of Washington to pursue his postdoctoral studies. His positive energy and expertise will be missed by all. Congrats and best of luck in your new position Max!

Congrats to Alex, David, and Sandeep on their recent publication which looked at making adoptive cell therapies more efficient. Their work was also highlighted on the cover of this month's issue of Nature Biotechnology! Check it out here.