Files
Abstract
The overall goal of my thesis work is to develop polymeric materials to manipulate theimmune system, primarily in a pro-inflammatory context for cancer treatment. While immunotherapy
has totally revolutionized cancer care, suboptimal response rates leave room
for improvements to the standard of care. Many drug delivery approaches have been taken
to enhance therapeutic efficacy of drugs and prevent systemic toxicities. In Chapter 1, I
provide a brief background on the drug delivery field and highlight recent advancements in
the strategic delivery of immunomodulatory drugs. In Chapter 2, I describe in detail the
delivery platform that is the heart of my experimental thesis work. The platform exploits the
fundamental metabolic dysregulation of cancer cells by binding to cancer cell surfaces and
cellular debris. The polymer carries an immune-stimulating adjuvant, which can activate
antigen-presenting cells and induce a specific immune response to cancer neoantigens. In
this chapter, I explore the material’s therapeutic efficacy in murine solid tumor models like
melanoma and breast cancer. Chapter 3 describes the implementation of the therapeutic
for hematological malignancies, where intravenous injection replaces intratumoral injection.
Finally, in Chapter 4, I discuss the conclusions and limitations of this work and offer
future research directions for the therapeutic manipulation of the immune system via polymeric materials.