UIC Researchers Producing Novel and Leading-edge Treatments and Technologies

Dr. Divya Bijukumar, assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at the University of Illinois College of Medicine Rockford and director of its Blazer Foundation of Rockford Nanomedicine Laboratory, is collaborating with Dr. Katherine Warpeha of UIC’s Department of Biological Sciences to develop a nanomedicine to reduce pain and inflammation. Dr. Bijukumar’s patent-pending method relies on exosomes (tiny vesicles found on cell membranes) to transport the medicine. Due to their biological origin, exosomes create less immune response and are more likely to deliver the drug to targeted areas for relief of pain and inflammation.

For another exosome-related project, Dr. Bijukumar received support from the UIC Chancellor’s Translational Research Initiative to advance development of the EVNaturoPatch, an exosome-releasing microneedle patch to deliver pain management therapies.

Dr. Zongmin Zhao and doctoral candidate Chih-Jia (Bess) Chao of UIC’s Retzky College of Pharmacy are elaborating on a novel approach to immunotherapy for cancer. Their “immuno-relay” design leverages a type of processing cell called cDC1s (adoptively transferred migratory type 1 conventional dendritic cells) and a specially designed antigen-capturing nano-sponge. The nano-sponge helps cDC1s bind with tumor antigens and deliver them to the lymph nodes. Their method, called antigen-capturing nanoparticle transformed dendritic cell therapy, promises a broadly effective approach for in situ cancer immunization, and shows elimination of colon cancer, melanoma and glioma primary tumors in 50% to 100% of treated mice.

Researchers at the University of Illinois College of Medicine have developed an open-source software platform named SenePy, which they detailed in a recent paper published in Nature Communications. The software assists researchers in the identification and study of senescent (aging or prematurely aging) cells in organs and tissues, and the UIC researchers used SenePy to examine the role of senescent cells in cancer, heart attacks, COVID-19 and brain inflammation. Lead author Dr. Jalees Rehman, Benjamin J. Goldberg Professor and head of the department of biochemistry and molecular genetics, notes that the SenePy tool will give researchers a boost for studying these biologically important cells to better understand and treat several diseases.