2023 IIN Symposium - "Nanotechnology: Guiding Immunity" Jeffrey Hubbell, 2023 Kabiller Prize winner

Jeffrey Hubbell
Eugene Bell Professorship for Tissue Engineering
Vice Dean and Executive Officer
Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
University of Chicago
The immune system exists in a delicate balance of mounting active, effector responses to fight infection from invading pathogens and to kill mutated cells that could lead to cancer, while existing in an active state of tolerance to the non-self contents of the gut and on the skin and to self proteins throughout the body. Dysfunction can lead to susceptibility to infection and cancer on the one hand, and to allergy and autoimmunity on the other. We are developing nanoscience-based immunotherapies to tip this balance one way or the other - for example engineering nanomaterials to trigger in-situ immune reactions to cancer cells and engineering protein antigen delivery systems to inverse vaccinate against autoimmune diseases to re-establish immunological tolerance to self or to treat allergic disease such as allergic asthma.