Yichun Wang, PhD
Keating-Crawford Collegiate Professor of Biomolecular Engineering
Assistant Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Notre Dame
Title:
Engineering Biomimetic Materials to Empower Multifunctional Therapeutic Small Extracellular Vesicles
Abstract:
Small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) are lipid-based nanoparticles with diameters between 50 nm and 150 nm, secreted by most eukaryotic cells. They are promising drug delivery vehicles due to their size, biocompatibility, low immunogenicity, and reduced toxicity in comparison with synthetic nanoscale formulations such as liposomes, dendrimers, and polymers. However, there remain fundamental challenges to the utilization of sEVs in the clinic: i) drug loading efficiency into sEVs is very limited; ii) the production of sEVs has yet to reach sufficient high throughput for further development; iii) endowing sEVs with multiple abilities for satisfactory disease targeting, tracking and combinational therapies is highly demanding. In this seminar, I will introduce a convergent bioengineered platform enabled by engineered biomimetic materials developed in The Wang Lab at the University of Notre Dame for advancing therapeutic sEVs in future medicine. This platform includes 1) a high-efficiency sEV drug loading technology with chiral graphene nanoparticles; 2) a high-yield in vitro sEV production cell culture scaffold with stimulating piezoelectric nanofibers; 3) engineered hybrid sEVs with biomimetic nanoparticles as a multifunctional targeted delivery system for cancer treatment. The platform allows loading drugs into sEVs with high efficiency, biomanufacturing sEVs in high throughput, and further engineering sEV-based drug delivery systems for various diseases with desired functions including targeted delivery, imaging, and multifunctional therapies.
Bio:
Dr. Yichun Wang joined Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Notre Dame in 2020 fall. She received her training as a postdoctoral research fellow in Chemical Engineering at the University of Michigan, where her research was focused on the development of new generation nanobiotics targeting amyloid protein in extracellular matrix of biofilm. She obtained the PhD degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, working on theoretical and experimental framework of ex-vivo evaluation system based on engineered 3D tissue culture models with tunable microenvironment. Currently, her research lab at Notre Dame is dedicated to the rational design of biomimetic nanomaterials, including chiral nanoparticles and nanocomposites, to empower next-generation medicine for treating cancer and neurodegenerative disease, by combining engineering, theoretical models, and computation. By doing so, she aims to provide valuable insights and advancements in the application of nanomaterials in healthcare. Her work holds great promise in innovating healthcare through cutting-edge nanotechnology research, earning her multiple recent awards, including ACS PMSE Early Career award, BMES CMBE Rising Star award, NIH Maximizing Investigators’ Research Award (MIRA) and NSF CAREER award.