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SUMMARY:Department Seminar: Dr Claire Stanley and Dr Jun Ishihara
DESCRIPTION:Catch up on this Bioengineering Department Seminar on our YouTu
 be channel: Click here to watch\n\nDR CLAIRE STANLEY\nTalk title: SOIL-ON
 -A-CHIP: Deciphering the secret life of soil microbes using novel microflu
 idic platforms\nAbstract: Soil is one of the most complex systems on Earth
 \, governed by numerous physical\, geochemical and biological processes\, 
 and provides the ecosystem services vital for all forms of terrestrial lif
 e. This ‘material’ supports a myriad of plants\, microorganisms and mi
 crofauna and hosts a complex array of interactions taking place between th
 ese living elements at the cellular scale. Microbes play a crucial role in
  the ecosystem services provided by soils to humans and provide several im
 portant ecosystem functions that include nutrient cycling\, the biocontrol
  of pathogens and regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. However\, despit
 e the importance of microbes in soil functioning\, there exists a major kn
 owledge gap concerning the function and dynamics of the soil microbiome an
 d influence of the physio-chemical environment upon microbial interaction 
 and communication at the cellular level.\nRecently\, it has been demonstra
 ted that microfluidic technology offers several new opportunities to study
  whole living organisms and their interactions. Microfluidics is defined a
 s the science and technology of fabricated systems used to manipulate flui
 ds on the micron scale and has a great potential to provide a unique view 
 of biological events at the level of single organisms and cells (i.e. micr
 obe–microbe interactions)\, allowing precise environmental control\, hig
 h-resolution imaging and the simulation of environmental complexity. Sever
 al microfluidic systems have been developed to probe the interaction betwe
 en fungi\, bacteria and nematodes\, as well as to investigate the interact
 ion of plant root with their environment under simulated environmental het
 erogeneity. The ability to untangle microbial interaction and communicatio
 n networks in the rhizosphere is central to gaining an enhanced understand
 ing of soil microbiome and ecosystem function\, and we are now developing 
 new tools to enhance our understanding of interactions in the rhizosphere 
 by using microfluidic technology to zoom into the microscale.\nBiography: 
 Claire graduated from Durham University in 2006 (Chemistry\, MChem)\, wher
 e she received the Michael Weston Scholarship Award\, and then obtained an
  MRes in Protein and Membrane Chemical Biology and a PhD in Chemistry from
  Imperial College London. There she was awarded the Sir Alan Fersht Prize 
 for her Master thesis and a prestigious scholarship from the Society of th
 e Chemical Industry. Fascinated by microfluidics\, Claire joined the group
  of Prof. Andrew deMello in the Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering 
 at ETH Zürich\, Switzerland as a postdoctoral research fellow. In 2016\, 
 she was awarded a prestigious Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione 
 career grant to start her own independent research team at Agroscope (Agro
 ecology and Environment Research Division\, Zürich) and joined the Depart
 ment of Bioengineering at Imperial College London as a Lecturer in 2020.\n
 Click here to read Claire’s full biography on her Imperial College Perso
 nal Web page.\n\nDR JUN ISHIHARA\nTalk title: Protein engineering approach
 es to control immune system for safe and efficacious drug development\nAbs
 tract: Cancer immunotherapy is the current first-in-line treatment of choi
 ce for many types of cancer. Unlike other common cancer treatments that ta
 rget cancer cells directly\, immunotherapy activates an individual’s own
  immune system to fight cancer. Checkpoint inhibitors (CPI) and IL-12 have
  shown clinical antitumor efficacy but are frequently accompanied with sid
 e-effects caused by systemic immune system activation. Also\, in terms of 
 efficacy\, more than half of cancer patients do not respond to CPI therapy
 . Here\, we addressed this need by targeting both the CPI antibodies (anti
 -CTLA4 + anti-PD-L1) and the cytokines (IL-12) to tumors via fusion to a c
 ollagen binding domain (CBD) protein. This approach harnesses the exposure
  of tumor stroma collagen due to the leakiness of the tumor vasculature. W
 e show that intravenously administered CBD protein localized preferentiall
 y in tumors. CBD addition decreased the systemic toxicity of these agents.
  CBD conjugation to CPI abolished the liver and lung damages. CBD fusion t
 o IL-12 decreased hepatotoxicity and cytokine release syndrome. As to thei
 r efficacy\, CBD-CPI and CBD-IL-12 suppressed tumor growth compared to the
 ir unmodified forms in multiple models. CBD addition to these agents incre
 ased tumor-infiltrating immune cells. CBD can be used to engineer immunoth
 erapies with high translational promise as systemically-administered tumor
  targeting drugs. Recently\, we have developed a “mask” for cancer imm
 unotherapy. My drug delivery system approaches aim to make cancer therapy 
 safe and efficacious.es.\nBiography: Jun Ishihara received a PhD in medica
 l genome science from the University of Tokyo. He first joined the Hubbell
  Laboratory in EPFL\, Switzerland as a post-doctoral fellow and has moved 
 with the lab to University of Chicago. In 2020\, he joined the Department 
 of Bioengineering\, Imperial College London as a lecturer. He is a co-foun
 der of Arrow Immune INC. and Sciencelounge LLC. (Running a Science Bar “
 Incubator” in Tokyo for research outreach activity).\nClick here to read
  Jun’s full biography on his Imperial College Personal Web page.
URL:https://www.imperial.ac.uk/events/129378/department-seminar-dr-claire-s
 tanley-and-dr-jun-ishihara/
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