Seminar Series
“Innate Immunomodulatory Nanoparticles for Tumor Microenvironment Remodeling and Combination Cancer Therapy”
Prabhani Atukorale, PhD
Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, UMass Amherst
Monday, October 30, 2023
Gateway 1002
12:00pm – 12:50pm
Abstract: While immunotherapies offer transformative promise for the treatment of cancer, their efficacy in solid tumors has been suboptimal. To date, most immunotherapies have focused on augmenting only CD8+ T cells, but have not included any strategies to mitigate the immunosuppressed “cold” tumor microenvironment (TME) that renders these T cells dysfunctional. Remodeling the TME from “cold” to “hot” by developing therapies that also augment proinflammatory innate antigen-presenting cells (APCs), such as dendritic cells and macrophages, is a fast-growing treatment paradigm, but current strategies including free cytokines, free agonists, and viruses have faced serious limitations in delivery and efficacy. We seek to address this critical gap by developing an engineering strategy based on a lipid-based immunomodulatory nanoparticle (immuno-NP) platform that co-encapsulates physically distinct but functionally synergistic innate immune agonists to promote the robust production of proinflammatory Type I interferons by tumor APCs. In this talk, I will first discuss the design and development of our immuno-NPs and their co-delivery of agonists of the Stimulator of Interferon Genes (STING) and Toll-like Receptor 4 (TLR4) pathways. I will then discuss the use of these immuno-NPs as combination therapies in two aggressive solid tumor settings. These include first, immuno-NP combination with PD1 checkpoint blockade in a neoadjuvant treatment setting for metastatic melanoma, and second, immuno-NP combination with RAS inhibitors for the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. This talk aims to highlight the importance of augmenting both innate and adaptive axes of anti-tumor immunity for efficacy in the treatment of solid tumors and also emphasizes the utility of “smart” nanomaterials engineering solutions to these challenges.
Biography: Prabhani Atukorale is an immunoengineer and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at UMass Amherst. As part of a unique two-campus collaborative effort, Dr. Atukorale’s research laboratory is located at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, MA, where she is affiliated with the Division of Innate Immunity in the Department of Medicine. The Atukorale Laboratory focuses on developing nanomaterials to modulate and interrogate innate immunity in the context of complex diseases like cancer. Dr. Atukorale trained as a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Efstathios Karathanasis’ laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. She has a Ph.D. from Dr. Darrell Irvine’s laboratory at MIT. She holds an M.S.E. from Johns Hopkins University and a B.E. from Vanderbilt University, also in Biomedical Engineering. In 2021, Dr. Atukorale was a recipient of a K22 Career Transition Award from the NCI to develop novel methods of cancer vaccination. This year, she was awarded a R21 Trailblazer Award from the NIBIB to design unique “super adjuvants” for platform vaccines.
For a zoom link please contact June Norton at jnorton@wpi.edu or Kate Harrison at kharrison@wpi.edu