Invention Description Obesity and related metabolic diseases are increasing in prevalence in the US and worldwide. They are difficult to treat with traditional therapies such as lifestyle intervention, pharmacotherapy, and various surgical procedures because of low compliance, low efficacy, high side effects and cost. One promising new approach focuses...

Invention Description One of the main challenges in nanoscale manufacturing is achieving precise three-dimensional (3D) positioning and organization of materials. DNA nanotechnology, such as DNA origami, offers a solution to this problem by leveraging the predictable base-pairing properties of DNA to design and construct nanoscale structures with molecular...

Single-molecule techniques make it possible to digitally count even extremely rare biomarker molecules, providing greatly improved sensitivity for early disease detection. However, in standard setups, there is a necessary balance: if the concentration is too high, molecules overlap and become unreadable; if too low, there are not enough events for robust...

DNA and RNA nanostructures, e.g., DNA Origami, have great potential in biological applications, including extracellular matrix scaffolds and delivery vehicles for drugs and gene therapies. While folding DNA origami under physiological conditions is plausible, significant challenges and limitations remain. For example, isothermal annealing of DNA origami...

Antigen-specific immune suppression or tolerance is a highly attractive strategy to prevent inflammation-induced tissue damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Although there is insufficient knowledge about autoantigens in human RA, generating and expanding synovium-specific regulatory T cells, and suppressing synovium-specific follicular T-helper cells,...

Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T-cell-based immunotherapies have dramatically improved survival in cancer patients. Unfortunately, CAR-T cell therapies are associated with severe neurotoxicity, adverse events during clinical trials, and cytokine storm syndrome among others. Therefore, there is a great need to develop strategies that can keep the benefits...

There is a great need to deliver metabolites intracellularly without modifying the metabolite itself and rescue immune cells against metabolic exhaustion. In cancer therapy, metabolic pathway inhibitors are used that starve both cancerous cells as well as non-cancerous cells. Therefore, the ability to target specific immune cells and deliver metabolites...

Inhibition of glycolysis or glutaminase pathway is an effective strategy to prevent cancer cell growth in vitro and in vivo. However, these pathways are also utilized by immune cells to mount responses against cancer cells, and therefore, utilizing, immunotherapies in the presence of such inhibitors is challenging. Thus, there is a need for technologies...

There is a rich history of successful drug delivery carriers made of biodegradable biomaterials. Biomaterials may degrade into metabolic by-products, which are capable of modulating the function of immune cells, including alpha-ketoglutarate (aKG), which induces alternative activation (immunosuppressive phenotype) in macrophages through metabolic reprogramming....

Glycolysis inhibition in cancer cells has long been recognized as a viable strategy to prevent cancer cell growth. Cancer cells are known to have a high glucose consumption rate as a metabolism adaptation mechanism called the Warburg effect. Activated immune cells also rely on glycolysis for their energy needs. For example, glycolysis is essential for...