BATS

Date/Time:

Feb 18, 2022 - 12:00 PM

Location:

Hosts:

Bevin Engelward

Speaker:

Title:

Lost in Translation: Predicting Human Vaccine Response from Preclinical Animal Models

Abstract:

The recent increase in emergence of infectious diseases illuminates the need for more efficient vaccine development. Currently the pipeline is limited by our ability to relate biological findings from animal models to clinical trial outcomes. Here we propose a generalizable computational framework that enables us to predict vaccine efficacy in humans and identify correlates of immunity based on preclinical data. This cross-species model may improve our mechanistic understanding of vaccine-induced immunity and accelerate the development pipeline.

Speaker:

Title:

Protein Delivery with a Bacterial Contractile Injection System

Abstract:

he ability to deliver therapeutic proteins to target cells would substantially advance the treatment of a wide array of diseases. To address this gap, we propose to harness a family of naturally-occurring protein delivery systems known as contractile injection systems (CISs). CISs are syringe-like macromolecular complexes that bind to target cells and inject cargo by forcefully driving a spike through the cellular membrane. In this talk, I discuss recent efforts to engineer CISs for targeted protein delivery in human cells.