Category Archives: News

UD Engineering professor recognized for work in protein engineering, synthetic biology

Wilfred Chen joined UD in 2011 as the Gore Professor of Chemical Engineering. He was previously a Presidential Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of California, Riverside. He earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, and his doctoral degree in chemical engineering from the California Institute of Technology. Two shelves in Chen’s office are lined with “Star Wars” movie memorabilia. Not long ago, the protein engineering research that takes place in his laboratory could have been the subject of science fiction, too. Chen develops technologies to modify proteins and DNAs in beneficial ways for applications that range from human health to sustainable energy. This includes novel uses of DNA computing and CRISPR Cas9, technologies of growing interest in synthetic biology. For example, Chen’s team has developed a technology to program strands of DNA into switches that turn proteins on and off — an innovation that could lead to the development of new cancer therapies and other drugs. In recognition of his contributions to the field, Chen will receive the 2018 American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Division Award in Chemical Engineering at the 2018 AIChE Annual Meeting.

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UD ingenuity sheds light on key biopharmaceutical manufacturing problem

Why some biopharmaceuticals have a longer shelf life than others is a problem that has baffled scientists and manufacturers alike. Even the same medication, produced by different manufacturers, can vary in its storage life. University of Delaware Professors Kelvin Lee and Abraham Lenhoff offer insight on one way this can happen in a special class of drugs called monoclonal antibodies, which comprise a large fraction of biopharmaceuticals. Traditional small molecule medicines, such as ibuprofen or aspirin, are manufactured using well-defined, discrete chemical reactions between various chemical compounds. Biopharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are much larger and more complex molecules that are manufactured by growing cells that produce a desired protein (often, an antibody) that is purified to create the medicine. Biopharmaceuticals can be used to treat cancers and autoimmune or inflammatory disorders, such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Adalimumab, for example, is a monoclonal antibody that blocks inflammation caused by rheumatoid arthritis by binding to the signaling protein that triggers the swelling.

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Prasad Dhurjati has been invited to be an overseas fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, established in England in 1805

Prasad Dhurjati, professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering with joint appointments in mathematical sciences and biological sciences, has accepted an invitation to be an overseas fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. Dhurjati’s collaborative work with biologists in computer modeling has provided much insight into medical research including brain cancer, osteoporosis, autism and the human gut microbiome. He joined the UD faculty in 1982. The Royal Society of Medicine was established in England in 1805. Among its honorary members are Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur and Sigmund Freud.

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UD engineers lay groundwork for cutting-edge cancer drugs

Cancer treatments—from radiation to surgery to chemotherapy—are designed to remove or kill cancerous cells, but healthy cells often become collateral damage in the process. What if you could use lasers to pinpoint the treatment area and deliver medicine to cancer cells only? A research team at the University of Delaware, led by Emily Day, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, is laying the groundwork for a method to inhibit cancer-promoting genes in cancer cells while leaving healthy cells intact. In a new paper published in Nano Letters, the team reveals unprecedented insights into this promising method, which involves coating nanoparticles with gene-regulatory agents and then exposing them to a dose of laser light to unleash that material. Because the nanoparticles hold the gene regulatory agents inactive until their release is triggered on-demand with light, they have substantial potential to enable high precision cancer therapy while minimizing impact to non-irradiated healthy cells.

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April Kloxin, assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and materials science and engineering at the University of Delaware, is the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry Researcher of the Month for May 2018. Her research group seeks to design dynamic materials, including novel biomaterials, and use them to understand and direct important biological signals in tissue regeneration and disease. Kloxin was also recently featured on the Susan G. Komen 3-Day Blog for her work addressing the issue of late recurrence for breast cancer survivors. In 2016, she received a Career Catalyst Research Award from the Susan G. Komen Roundation for this work. “My research group is working to develop materials that mimic the body tissues where breast cancer recurrence is likely to occur,” she said in the blog post. “Our team is trying to understand how the environment of these tissues causes dormant breast cancer cells to ‘wake up’, leading to recurrence.”

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