FBR: Prof. Juliane Nguyen

Speaker: Prof. Juliane Nguyen

Sticky Solutions: Probiotics, Velcro, and Zippers in Targeted Therapies

Talk abstract: This talk will cover different targeting strategies to enhance therapeutic efficacy at specific disease sites in the body. The first part will focus on amplifying targetable surface areas using a novel approach where each dose of nanoparticles, cells, or other therapeutics acts as a capturing surface for subsequent doses. This method significantly improves drug accumulation at disease sites, specifically the infarcted heart.
The second part of the talk will discuss targeted strategies to compete against trillions of host microbes in the gut, enhancing the therapeutic efficacy of a probiotic yeast. We engineered Saccharomyces boulardii to bind to extracellular matrix proteins within inflammatory lesions, significantly increasing its concentration and residence time in the gut, leading to improved treatment outcomes for inflammatory bowel diseases.