Seminar: Engineering Tissues with One Touch

Abstract

In vivo cellular reprogramming has the potential to facilitate the development of highly effective and translational cell therapies for a wide variety of conditions. Current reprogramming methodologies, however, face major practical and translational hurdles, including heavy reliance on viral transfection and a highly stochastic nature, which often leads to inefficient, unpredictable and unsafe reprogramming outcomes. This group has developed a novel tissue nano-transfection (TNT) platform technology that overcomes these barriers by enabling deterministic transduction of reprogramming factors into tissues (with single-cell resolution) without the need for viral vectors. This nanotechnology-based approach promotes remarkably fast and efficient tissue reprogramming in vivo through a single topical (i.e., non-invasive) intervention that only lasts a few milliseconds. Such platform could be applicable to virtually any cell therapy model, and its non-invasive and non-viral nature make it an ideal intervention approach in a multitude of clinically relevant scenarios. During this seminar the potential applications of this platform technology in the treatment of neurological conditions, vascular deficiencies and diabetes will be discussed.

About the speaker

Daniel Gallego-Perez is an assistant professor in Ohio State's Department of Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering. He earned his PhD in biomedical engineering at The Ohio State University in 2011. His doctoral research focused on the implementation of micro/nanoscale technologies for controlling the cellular microenvironment. He then completed postdoctoral training at the Center for Affordable Nanoengineering of Polymeric Biomedical Devices (Ohio State), where he worked on the development of novel nanotechnology-enabled platforms for a number of applications, including single-cell analysis, gene delivery and cellular reprogramming. His laboratory has continued to expand on this topic by focusing on the development of novel nanodevices and transformative cell therapies for applications in tissue engineering/regenerative medicine and cancer. Daniel has been awarded multiple recognitions throughout his career, including most recently the IMR Innovation Award and the Lumley Interdisciplinary Research Award. His research has been funded by NIH (NINDS and NIDDK), Chronic Brain Injury/Discovery Themes, IMR, TCO and the Department of Surgery and Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Hosted by Professor Jonathan Song.