Our research group uses biomaterials and nanotechnology to advance drug delivery for maternal, fetal, and neonatal health.
Understanding and manipulating the vaginal microbiome
Designing nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery in pregnancy
Advancements towards women’s health and children’s health are limited by our failure to understand the unique and complex biology of these populations. Many adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm birth, stillbirth, and preeclampsia, have no clear root cause nor effective cure, altogether representing 30% of global pregnancies and billions of dollars spent.
Adverse pregnancy outcomes are linked to the composition and function of the vaginal microbiome. Billions of bacteria naturally protect the vagina against invading organisms, communicating amongst themselves and with their human host via extracellular vesicles. In our lab, we engineer bacterial extracellular vesicles’ size, surface chemistry, and cargo to enable microbiome- and host-targeted drug delivery — learning more about the natural functions of bacteria and their extracellular vesicles as we go.
Drug delivery to mom and/or baby is limited by our poor characterization of biological barriers like vaginal mucus, fluid cycling in the reproductive tract, and fetal circulation, and how these barriers are altered by inflammation and associated adverse outcomes. In our lab, we leverage nanotechnology as probes to better understand the biochemical features of pregnancy in health and disease. Our findings enable us to design and develop safer, more effective, and better targeted therapeutics for pregnant people.
