Physicians may soon be able to use nanotechnology to deliver specialized vaccines for the treatment of previously incurable immune disorders, Yale biomedical and chemical engineering professor Tarek Fahmy said Friday in a lecture at the Thayer School of Engineering. Fahmy, who spoke as part of the Thayer School's Jones Seminar Series, said continuing research within the nanotechnology field may eventually allow medical professionals to detect cancer and other ailments earlier.
Vaccines function by exposing the body to low doses of a foreign pathogen, called an antigen. The antigen causes the body's immune system to generate antibodies, which use a variety of mechanisms to destroy the foreign substance when a full-on exposure occurs.
Delivering antigen to the relevant immune system cells is often difficult, Fahmy said, explaining that this is one of the biggest impediments to the development of new vaccines for cancer and many infectious diseases.
Researchers in Fahmy's lab are now working to develop nanoparticles small enough to navigate among cells and programmed to detect those that have been infected, Fahmy said.
"Our work has been trying to develop a system that encapsulates antigen and delivers it to specific cells," he said, adding later, "The cell is not just a glob, but it actually has many different compartments. Depending on which department has been affected, you get a different kind of immune response."
Fahmy said he predicted that the nanoparticles will pass researchers' safety tests, as many are made from materials similar to those found in commonly used sutures.
"Biodegradable polymers have established use in humans for over 30 years," he said.
When mixed with drugs, these polymers congeal and form dispensable particles, which safely release the drug into the body, according to Fahmy.
While physicians strive to diagnose diseases by searching within the body for the pathogens themselves, measuring the immune system's responses to these pathogens would be an easier method of disease detection, Fahmy said.
"The immune system itself already detects pathogens," he said. "Reading the immune response is probably much more efficient in terms of detecting types of infections."
When cancer-detecting nanoparticles are injected at tumor sites, special imaging devices can illuminate diseased cells and allow doctors to more easily remove them, Fahmy said. Nanodetection aims to identify infected cells before the disease spreads.
"Disease detection at the molecular level enables early screening and intervention," he said.
Fahmy said he could not give a good estimate of when these nanomaterials will be available for clinical use, but added that he looks forward to the developments his lab will make in the near future.
"There's always plenty of surprises," he said.
Fahmy said his lab has been successful, in part, because of the small size of Yale's School of Engineering and Applied Science, which he said facilitates more direct collaboration between students and faculty. For the current academic year, 351 undergraduate and graduate students are enrolled at the school -- similar to the Thayer School's 373, according to both schools' web sites.
"The Thayer School of Engineering is a place that I've long admired and heard about," Fahmy said. "We are both pretty small, and that size is actually very good."
In the Jones Seminar Series, science professionals visit the Thayer School and discuss a range of "big picture" topics about society's relationship with science and technology, according to the series' web site. The seminars, which are open to the public, occur every Friday afternoon in Spanos Auditorium.
