Date/Time
Date(s) - 08/28/2023
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location
Communicore, C1-15
Abstract: Cell-based therapeutics are an emerging modality that can potentially treat many currently intractable diseases through uniquely powerful modes of action. Our group is innovating new biomaterials and cellular constructs for medicine and biology by combining chemical biology, cellular engineering, and multi-scale fabrication. We have pioneered innovative approaches to synthesizing and in vivo screening of large libraries of biomaterial formulations for tailored applications in immunology and medicine. In my talk, I will describe our advances in discovering immunomodulatory biomaterials that can interact appropriately with the host immune system for localized immunomodulation. I will highlight our efforts to develop “cytokine factories” locally activating the innate and adaptive immune response to generate systemic immunotherapy and eradicate metastatic cancer. This approach has advanced to phase I/II human clinical trials for treating recurrent, refractory ovarian cancer.
Speaker’s biography: Dr. Omid Veiseh, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. He leads an interdisciplinary translational research program to engineer and commercialize next-generation cell-based therapeutics for various human diseases. His team leverages the latest techniques in synthetic biology, immunoengineering, and materials science to develop innovative cell-based platforms for real-time and feedback-regulated production of biologics. Over the course of his career, he has authored or co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications, including those in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Medicine, and Nature Biomedical Engineering, and is an inventor on more than 40 pending or awarded patents. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded Sigilon Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SGTX), Avenge Bio, Sentinel Bio, and Curada Bio. These companies collectively have attracted ~ $500M in private and public investment capital.