ENG Faculty Win Ignition Awards
Researchers earn honors, funds for tech targeting cancer, respiratory diseases
By David Levin
ENG faculty members Mark Grinstaff, Wilson Wong, and Béla Suki have won 2023 BU Ignition Awards.
Given by BU Technology Development, the awards are designed to accelerate the advancement of promising new science and technology.
In addition to a financial grant, award winners receive coaching and support to bring their innovations to market, helping them more easily make the move from academic research to a tangible proof-of-concept required for a company to invest. If successful, the 2023 cohort of scientists and engineers may become Boston’s newest entrepreneurs.
Fighting Cancer with Supercharged T Cells
Many cancer therapies today recruit the body’s own immune system to fight tumors. One such exciting immunotherapy involves removing T cells (a type of white blood cell) from a patient’s body, genetically reprogramming them to seek and destroy cancerous cells, and then injecting them back into the body to carry out their orders. But each round of these treatments is only active for a short amount of time before losing steam.
Mark Grinstaff and Wilson Wong are developing a new way to coax these modified immune cells, called CAR T cells, into attacking their targets for longer periods and with greater levels of intensity. By introducing a specialized RNA molecule into T cells, the researchers force the cells to express more cancer-targeting proteins on their surface, making them more likely to find and destroy tumors. If successful, this technology will make existing immunotherapies far more effective. Grinstaff is the University’s inaugural Distinguished Professor of Translational Research and Wong is an associate professor of biomedical engineering.
Mimicking the Human Lung
At the moment, there’s no cure for major respiratory diseases like asthma, emphysema, and fibrosis. Part of the reason, says Béla Suki, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering, is that it’s hard to test new drugs in the lab: animal lungs aren’t true analogs for human tissue, and cells grown in a dish can’t replicate our breathing—or the complex biochemical signals it triggers in lung tissue.
Suki has developed a new device, called AccuStretch, that may solve this problem. The device mounts precision-cut lung tissue from organ donors onto a flexible membrane that constantly stretches and relaxes, mimicking real breaths. He has also created a new way to measure the stiffness of the tissue, another key component of lung disease. Using powerful image processing software developed in his lab, Suki’s system can analyze the position of tiny fluorescent dots embedded in the flexible membrane, offering real-time data on the physical properties of the tissue.