Vaccine Design Using Smart Materials and Nanotechnology

A key goal of the Irving Laboratory is to engineer enhanced immunity through the design of materials that control the immune response elicited by vaccines. We have focused in two main areas: (i) nanoparticle-based strategies to enhance subunit vaccines and (ii) microneedle technologies for non-invasive vaccine/drug delivery through the skin. In collaborative efforts with faculty from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, we have applied these technologies toward the design of a vaccine for HIV, while with colleagues from the Koch Institute, we focus on using these approaches to enhance therapeutic cancer vaccines.