Ellen Kan (GRIFFITH & KAMM LABS)

Engineering Microphysiological Systems to Investigate Endometriotic Lesion Vascularization

Vascularization is a major hallmark in the pathogenesis of endometriosis, a disease that causes debilitating pain and infertility in as many as one in 10 women. However, few tools and physiologically relevant models exist to examine the complex role of vasculature in the endometriotic lesion microenvironment. Here, we develop a microphysiological system that integrates patient-derived endometrial cells with 3D perfusable microvasculature, advancing our ability to elucidate the mechanisms and function of vascularization in disease progression.

Ellen Xu (BIRNBAUM LAB)

Engineering Retroviruses for Antigen-specific Gene Delivery to T cells

Adoptive cell therapies have introduced a new class of effective and durable cancer treatments. However, current ex vivo T cell manipulations rely on lentiviral vectors with broad tropism for activated T cells. In this project, we leverage a novel virus pseudotyping strategy to selectively modify anti-tumor T cells in polyclonal populations and explore targeted delivery of engineered cytokines, proteins that have historically induced systemic toxicities but could be specifically administered in vivo with our gene delivery system.