Speaker - Kevin McHugh, PhD, Assistant Professor, Departments of Bioengineering & Chemistry, Rice University
Webinar: Monday, 17 June 2024, 12-1:00 PM Eastern Time
How to join: https://oklahoma.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMudeygrjwoE9Vp8mhMF4prlIaMWtIJ40Hk
Seminar summary:
Drugs have revolutionized modern healthcare, reducing mortality and morbidity for many diseases. As a result, more than half of the world’s population takes at least one medication every day. However, despite their enormous health benefits, drug utility is limited by sub-optimal efficacy, side effects, low patient adherence, and accessibility issues. This seminar will describe the development of two drug delivery platforms - one based on a self-assembled peptide hydrogel and another based on microfabricated polymeric particles. These systems are capable of modulating the timing and location of drug release via different mechanisms, which can be optimized for the disease of interest. In the first system, self-assembled peptides functionalized to engage in dynamic covalent bonding are shown to prolong small-molecule and protein therapeutic release, thereby improving pharmacokinetic profiles and drug efficacy in both diabetes and tuberculosis. In the second system, microparticles with core-shell structures are shown to exhibit pulsatile drug release after a delay that can be tuned from hours to months. Then, by combining different particle populations, full dosing regimens can be administered in a single injection. This approach is particularly attractive for use in the development of single-injection vaccines that can improve access to immunization in low-resource settings.