_EDL2195.jpg
 

ImmunoEngineering Lab

 

About the Lab

The ImmunoEngineering Lab, a.k.a. the Zaharoff Lab, in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill focuses on the development of innovative, translatable vaccine and immunotherapy delivery platforms that will have high clinical impact in an immediate timeframe.

Our multidisciplinary research program utilizes the engineering design process to develop novel biomaterials-based strategies for localized immunotherapy delivery. Localized immunotherapy delivery is based on the principles that nearly all diseases can be managed through immunomodulation and that immunotherapies are safest and most effective if delivered directly to the affected tissue/organ. Our delivery systems exploit both natural and engineered biomaterials to control the context in which antigens and/or immunomodulators are introduced to the immune system. Controlling delivery allows us to:  (1) manipulate duration and intensity of immune responses; (2) limit systemic side effects; and (3) overcome local inflamed or suppressed microenvironments.

News and Announcements


Santa gets plastic surgery

There is no other explanation for the change in his appearance from last year. None whatsoever.

December 14, 2022


P4-07-63

She couldn’t get enough of the Riverwalk in October at BMES, so Siena returned to present at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS). She is on the cutting edge of localized immunotherapy and fashion!!

December 8, 2022


Khue wins award and presents at SITC

During one of the pre-eminent gatherings of cancer nerds, the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting, “Cool Hand” Khue presented his research on the development of a novel antibody against vasoactive intestinal peptide. Khue won a travel award and tried to use it to go St. Bart’s, but SITC made him go to Boston. It was worth a shot.

November 10, 2022


Maura gets married!

During a particularly long incubation step, Maura Vrabel decided to become Maura Vrabel Brown. A master of efficiency, Maura carefully treated her cells then hustled down to the church and found an anesthesiologist (cha-ching!!) named Dr. Brad Brown and the rest is history. When asked to comment, Maura figured that she “would get married at some point” and “the 6 hour incubation time provided a really good window of opportunity.” Congrats to the happy couple!!

October 14, 2022


Young man watches Siena’s talk at BMES

A smartly dressed onlooker took in Siena’s presentation at the BMES Annual Meeting in San Antonio. He was wearing a navy blue suit, a white shirt and probably a tie. His hair was parted and gelled on the left and he had no visible neck tattoos so it probably wasn’t Post.

October 14, 2022


Khue & Siena collaborate to end mouse COVID

FACT: Most mice in the world do not have access to -80 freezers for mRNA vaccine storage. Also, mRNA vaccines require healthcare workers for administration. and their inclusion of genetic material aggravates vaccine hesitancy. To solve all three limitations at once, Khue & Siena developed an intranasal COVID vaccine. The vaccine is stable at room temperature, contains no genetic material and could be self-administered similar to an intranasal spray (in humans at least). Check out their publication in Frontiers in Immunology.

May 3, 2022


Intravesical chitosan/IL-12 is safe … in mice

If you are a mouse with bladder cancer, boy do we have some good news for you! Khue’s paper in the journal Bladder Cancer, shows that intravesical treatment with the co-formulation of chitosan and interleukin-12 was well-tolerated and induced only mild, transient inflammation in the bladder.

December 13, 2021


Santa’s blinged out!

Check out that rock on his finger!! I mean, you don’t pose like that unless you’re trying to flex.

December 3, 2021


Candidate Vrabel

Maura passed her PhD candidacy exam, much to the surprise of ... no one. Just another wednesday at the office.

July 1, 2021


Summer in the Sandbox!

What’s better than spending your summer in the ImmunoEngineering Lab developing life-saving immunotherapies?! How about getting paid to spend your summer in the ImmunoEngineering Lab developing life-saving immunotherapies. UG researchers Jake Schulman and Robert Kobrin were both named Abrams Scholar REU recipients.

June 2, 2021


Siena wins an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!!

Look at the shock! And to think she wasn’t even going to apply because the NSF seemed to be prioritizing a bunch of computer stuff! Congrats Siena, well deserved!

March 23, 2021


PPE Santa

Working real hard on that Bass Pro lab sponsorship deal!!

December 4, 2020


Virtual Maura presents at SITC 2020

Maura updated her cryo-immunotherapy studies at the SITC Virtual Meeting. Thanks to our supporters at Boston Scientific, Bhanu Koppolu and Matt Dreher.

November 7, 2020


Pumpkin tumor resections….I think?!

Maura and Siena hone their skillz.

October 30, 2020


‘The Beast’ is published

Our 20,000 word review on localized IL-12 cancer immunotherapies was published in Frontiers in Immunology. If you are having trouble falling asleep tonight, click here.

October 15, 2020


Siena presents at vBMES

Noted murine oncologist, Siena Mantooth, describes how she eliminates pancreas tumors at the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Virtual Meeting. So, if anyone out there has a pet mouse with a pancreatic tumor, give Siena a holler!

October 7, 2020


Jake gets paid

Congrats to UG researcher Jake Schulman for being named an Abrams Scholar for the 2020-21 academic year! Jake’s project will focus on the development of a vaccine to prevent accidental fentanyl overdose.

October 6, 2020


NCBC grant

Thanks to the North Carolina Biotechnology Center for funding our Flash Grant proposal on the “Development of a Th1-biased vaccine for SARS-CoV-2.” We probably can’t beat Pfizer or Moderna to FDA approval, but we’ll be ready for SARS-CoV-3.

July 1, 2020


Feast yer eyes

No one, I mean NO ONE can fake lab work for stock photos as well as we can. Check out that technique!! Check out that PPE!!!!

May, 2020


Welcome Siena Mantooth!!

The pride of Manassas, VA joined the ImmunoEngineering Lab. This is the second chemical engineer from Notre Dame. I think we are on to something…sshhh… don’t tell anyone.

May 26, 2020


Vrabel wins NSF Graduate Research Fellowship!!

In celebration, Maura got a tattoo of the NSF logo on the inside of her eyelids as a constant reminder of her greatness.

March 30, 2020


Jared is EPIC!

Congratulations to Jared Hopkins who graduated with his M.S. in Biomedical Engineering and took a job with Epic Systems in Madison, WI. Don’t worry Jared, your record for ‘Most Taquitos consumed in One Sitting’ is safe for many years to come (or eternity, whichever comes first).

March 1, 2020


CDMRP Lung Cancer grant

Thanks to the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program (CDMRP) for funding our project to compare cryoablation plus localized IL-12 and surgical resection plus localized IL-12 vs. metastatic lung tumors.

February 19, 2020


Ms. Vrabel goes to Washington

Maura presents her cryo-immunotherapy work at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual Meeting. Special thanks to Bhanu Koppolu and Matt Dreher at Boston Scientific, who have been great supporters of this work.

November 7, 2019


Khue’s paper published in JBC

His paper builds upon his previous work demonstrated that heparin and heparin sulfate can enhance the activity of IL-12. Heparin chain length and degree of sulfation we found to be critical parameters for enhancing IL-12. Based on these data he proposed a model of stabilization by which heparin enhances binding of IL-12 to its receptor subunits, IL-12Rb1 and IL12Rb2, which both have putative heparin binding domains.

January 22, 2019


So Long Frank!!

One of the goals of our lab is to train good people for their next position. In the immortal words of Bush43 “Mission accomplished!” Frank landed a cushy job as a Process Development Scientist at Grifols! We’d post a pic of Frank, but there are so few that it is quite possible that all of this has been a front for his real gig in the CIA.

January 18, 2019


Dr. Khue G. Nuyen!!!

After a frantic finish which included a couple all nighters, Khue successfully defended his dissertation. He also rode a Cowfish and his dad came from Vietnam to see him walk. That’s what its all about kids.

Khue likes North Carolina so much that he’s going to stick around as a postdoc.

December 16, 2018


Fake Santa

Asked if Santa new Buddy the Elf and he just gave a blank stare, mouth agape. If you don’t know who Buddy the Elf is, then you ain’t Santa. By the way, that’s a good money making scheme. How popular do you think a Buddy the Elf photo opp would be?

December 13, 2018


Sruthi’s paper (finally) published in Breast Cancer Research

It’s not her fault they took forever. Her paper shows that G-CSF can drive expansion of MDSCs which protects G-CSF secreting tumor cells from recognition and elimination by the immune system. If you knockout G-CSF, the highly aggressive 4T1 tumor model becomes quite immunogenic.

October 22, 2018


Welcome Maura Vrabel!!

Maura is a new PhD student. She is a Chemical Engineering grad from Notre Dame. She hails from the thriving metropolis of Boiling Springs, PA and was awarded the NC State Provost’s Fellowship. She likes Notre Dame football from February through December.

August 16, 2018


Welcome Frank Gillam!!

Frank (Francis) B. Gillam, PhD, joins the lab as a postdoc. Frank returns to North Carolina, earning his PhD in Biomolecular Engineering from Virginia Tech where he was President of the Frank Beamer fan club. Frank grew up in Asheville and earne BS and MS degrees from NC State.

January 29. 2018


Khue and Bhanu publish in Scientific Reports

Along with our University of Arkansas colleagues, Bhanu and Khue demonstrate that heparin serves as a co-receptor in order to enhance the bioactivity of IL-12. In addition, heparin is able to recover the IL-12 activity in cells in which both IL-12 receptor subunits have been functionally deleted.

July 13, 2017


Leaving the nest....time to re-load!!

Congratulations to Sean Smith for accepting a postdoc fellowship in the Hammond Lab at MIT!!!!

Congratulations to Bhanu Koppolu for accepting a position with BTG International!!!!

With these departures, the Zaharoff Lab is looking for more graduate students and postdocs. An advertisement for one postdoctoral position is here.

June 30, 2017


Dr. Sean

Congrats to Sean Smith for a successful defense of his dissertation!! They grow up so fast!!

 

June 1, 2017


All Sean does is win

Sean Smith won 3rd place in the Engineering Division of the 12th Annual Graduate Research Symposium at NC State. He spent all of his winnings on diapers, like a good Dad-to-be. Double congrats, Sean and Emily!!

March 22, 2017


No Santa, No Problem

We went to get our annual lab picture with Santa, as is our tradition, but the jolly old elf was taking a nap. So we had to improvise a little.

December 14, 2016


Congrats Dr. R!!!

Sruthi Ravindranathan successfully defends her dissertation!  She is now off to do a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Edmund Waller's lab at Emory University. Congratulations and Best of Luck!!!!

December 6, 2016


Sean's manuscript published in OncoImmunology

In his latest paper, Sean Smith characterizes the local and systemic immune response to intravesical immunotherapy of bladder cancer with chitosan/IL-12. The paper is Open Access on the OncoImmunology website or you can download it here.

November 18, 2016


Sean speaks at SITC 2016

Sean's abstract was selected for a podium presentation in the "Emerging Technologies" session at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) Annual meeting in National Harbor, MD. The session was well attended and most importantly, he got to eat at the iconic Ben's Chili Bowl in DC.

November 12, 2016


Goodbye Arkansas, hello North Carolina

The Z lab has moved to the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and NC State University. We expect that this move will provide more opportunities to interface with oncologists and drive our cutting edge immunotherapies into the clinic. The goal is and always will be to eliminate the mortality and morbidity associated with cancer. Moving to North Carolina will help us achieve this goal. That said, we will miss our Arkansas colleagues and friends. Arkansas is a special place.

August 15, 2016


Another competition, another win for Sean and VivImmune

Sean's team won the graduate division at the Donald W. Reynolds Tri-State Collegiate Business Plan Competition in Las Vegas. In addition to the $30,000 first place prize, they also received $2,000 for winning the graduate division elevator pitch competition. Read more here.

May 31, 2016


So long Seniors!

A talented group of LVID undergraduate researchers are taking their tale. Seth Washispack enrolled in the accelerated MBA program in the Walton College of Business at U of A. Cassie Walker has accepted a position as a Consulting Analyst with Cerner Corporation. Kristina Maxwell will go to Wash U as a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering. Future physicians Jack Baltz and Annika Tabassum will enroll at UAMS. Tayler Pauls will go to Boston University as a PhD student in Biomedical Engineering.  

May 14, 2016


Sruthi's paper published in Marine Drugs

This paper settles a longstanding controversy over whether or not the ubiquitous biopolymer chitosan is immunogenic. Sruthi found that the wide varieties of chitosan from different vendors induce drastically different inflammatory responses. By painstakingly depyrogenating chitosan (i.e. removing endotoxins), Sruthi showed that pure chitosan is more or less immunologically inert.

May 11, 2016


VivImmune wins first place at the Cardinal Challenge

Sean & Co. win first place in the graduate division and $25,000 at the 2016 Donald W. Reynolds Governor’s Cup Collegiate Business Plan Competition.  They also won the AT&T Elevator Pitch Contest for $2,000 and the Delta Plastics Innovation Award for $5,000. Read more here.

April 20, 2016


Zaharoff lab spin off, VivImmune, wins first place at the Cardinal Challenge

Sean Smith and colleagues at VivImmune took home $15,000 in cash plus $100,000 of in-kind prizes from the Brown-Forman Cardinal Challenge, a business plan competition at the University of Louisville. Read more here.

February 13, 2016


Sean's review paper published in Immunotherapy

This review makes a strong case for the development of new immunotherapies for non-muscle invasive bladder cancer that are capable of inducing tumor-specific immune responses.

February 9, 2016


Welcome to the world Saanvi Koppolu!!

Bhanu and Weiwei were jealous of Khue so they went and had a baby of their own!!

January 21, 2016


Welcome to the world Maggie Nguyen!!

Khue Nguyen and his wife have a 6lb baby girl. No CRISPR/Cas9 technology was used in the making of this baby!

December 24, 2015

 


Kristina wins a SURF award

Congratulations to Kristina Maxwell for winning a Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) for her project "G-CSF Knockdown Immunomodulation of Breast Cancer Cells for Whole Tumor Cell Vaccine." She will be learning CRISPR/Cas9 technology to knock-out G-CSF in 4T1 breast tumor cells.

December 23, 2015


Sruthi presents breast cancer research at SITC and SABCS

Sruthi Ravindranathan presented her data on breast tumor cell vaccines and immunosuppressive induced by myeloid-derived suppressor cells at the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) in National Harbor, MD and at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium in San Antonio.

 

December 6, 2015


Seth is significant!

Seth Washispack is selected as a "Senior of Significance" for the Class of 2016.  This award is given to the top 2% of seniors at the University as determined by the faculty.

December 3, 2015


Rudolph, with your nose so bright...

Great news..Santa was awake this year!!  Prior to visiting Santa, Kristina Maxwell, a.k.a. Turkey Tina, showed off her bowling skilz at a Z lab Lunch n' Bowl outing.

December 3, 2015


BMES 2015 in Tampa, FL

Khue Nguyen, Kristina Maxwell, Jack Baltz, Seth Washispack and Tayler Pauls all hung posters at the Biomedical Engineering Society's Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL.

October 10, 2015


Sean presents bladder cancer immunotherapy research to Elsa and Elmo!

Sean Smith presented his most recent bladder immunotherapy findings at the Inaugural CRI-CIMT-EATI-AACR International Cancer Immunotherapy Conference in New York City.  He even took time out of his busy schedule to make believers out of Elsa and Elmo! Olaf wasn't so interested.

September 20, 2015


Zaharoff Lab awarded funding for Breast Cancer work

A one-year grant from the Arkansas Breast Cancer Research Program was award to the Zaharoff lab to determine if immune suppression induced by breast cancer can be reversed with cytokine adjuvant therapy following standard-of-care tumor resection. The long term goal of the study is to re-establish immune function in the breast cancer patient in order to prevent progressive recurrences and metastasis which is responsible for more than 90% of breast cancer deaths.

September 1, 2015


Sean goes to Amgen

Sean Smith embarks on a graduate internship in the Comparative Biology and Safety Sciences division of Amgen in South San Francisco.  

June 1, 2015


Khue presents at AAI 2015

Khue Nguyen presented a posted titled: "Mechanisms of Cytokine and Chemokine Regulation Interleukin-12 elicits various responses of splenocytes from different mouse strains," at the American Association of Immunologist (AAI) 2015 Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA.

May 1, 2015


David Zaharoff is COE's Rising Star

David Zaharoff was recognized by the College of Engineering with the Rising Star Faculty Award. The award is based classic metrics of scholastic activities (i.e., publications, impact, number of PhD and MS students graduated, extramural funding, patent submissions that lead to local economy development, prestigious awards like NSF, DOD, DOE, NIH career awards, etc.).

April 28, 2015


Zaharoff recognized in University's Top 15

David Zaharoff was recognized by the offices of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Vice Provost for Research and Economic Development as one of the University of Arkansas' Top 15 most highly funded in fiscal year 2014.

April 28, 2015


Michaela Mertz wins BMEG Outstanding Senior

Congratulations to Michaela Mertz who was named Department of Biomedical Engineering Outstanding Senior for the Class of 2015.  Michaela will pursue her PhD studies at the University of Florida in the fall.

April 27, 2015


Michaela Mertz receives NSF GRF Honorable Mention

Graduating senior Michaela Mertz receives the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable Mention

April 23, 2015


Ethan Lowry presents at AACR 2015

Ethan Lowry presents his chitosan hydrogel work at American Association for Cancer Research 2015 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA

April 21, 2015


Zaharoff Lab featured on Arkansas Short Takes

As a recipient of funding support from the Women's Giving Circle, several Z lab members make cameos in this short video.

April 1, 2015


Ethan Lowry presents research at State Capitol

Ethan Lowry presented his chitosan hydrogel research to state senators and representatives at the State Capitol building in Little Rock. In the fall, Ethan will pursue a PhD in biomedical engineering at the University of Auckland, New Zealand

February 5, 2015


Zaharoff Lab visits Santa

After a Holiday Feast at Penguin Ed's BBQ, members of the Z lab descend upon Santa for our annual lab photo.

December 10, 2014


For older Zaharoff Lab news, click here.