Awarded in 2024
Home Department: Bioengineering
Faculty Advisors: Jennifer Cochran (Bioengineering) and Mark Pegram (Medicine – Oncology)

Research Title: Engineering Bispecific Antibodies for Cytokine Sequestration in Cancer

Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is a devastating disease with limited targeted therapeutic options due to lack of characteristic receptors. Oncostatin M (OSM) and leukemia inhibitory factor (LIF) have been highlighted as cytokines whose upregulated expression in TNBC drives proliferation and metastasis. Individual inhibition of OSM and LIF has caused significant cellular and anti-tumorigenic effects in the TNBC tumor microenvironment (TME), however simultaneous inhibition has been underexplored. Nayla will engineer a novel protein that can simultaneously bind and inhibit OSM and LIF for TNBC targeted therapy, as well as a unique reagent for probing ligand-receptor activity in the TME.