Kevin Healy's Biography

Kevin Healy, Jan Fandrianto and Selfia Halim Distinguished Professorship in Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

Kevin E. Healy, Ph.D. is the Jan Fandrianto and Selfia Halim Distinguished Professor in Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley in the Departments of Bioengineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. He served as Chair of the Department of Bioengineering from 2011 to 2015. He is a thought leader and innovator working at the interface between stem cells and materials science to develop dynamic engineered systems to explore both fundamental biological phenomena and new applications in translational medicine. His group currently conducts research in the areas of: bioinspired stem cell microenvironments to control stem cell lineage specification and self-organization into microtissues or organoids; bioinspired systems for regenerative medicine; biological interfaces; and, microphysiological systems for drug development, gene editing, and environmental toxicity screening. Professor Healy is an elected Fellow of AIMBE, AAAS, FBSE, BMES, and recently received an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Award. He has chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Biomaterials and Biocompatibility, and has been honored with the 2011 Clemson award for outstanding contributions to basic biomaterials science. He is a named inventor on numerous issued United States and international patents relating to biomaterials, therapeutics, stem cells, and medical devices, and has founded several companies to develop these systems for applications in biotechnology and regenerative medicine.

Exploiting Non-Animal Models to Optimize Lipid Nanoparticle/mRNA Complexes as Heart Therapeutics

Tuesday, 19 November 2024 at 18:00

Add to Calendar ▼2024-11-19 18:00:002024-11-19 19:00:00Europe/LondonExploiting Non-Animal Models to Optimize Lipid Nanoparticle/mRNA Complexes as Heart TherapeuticsLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2024 in Laguna Hills, CaliforniaLaguna Hills, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

Although cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide, innovation in heart failure therapeutics has been sparse. A primary reason behind the lack of therapeutic development is the inability to use phenotypic tissue-level approaches to discover novel therapies, such as complex in vitro models like microphysiological systems (MPS). In recent years, therapeutics that increase the expression of specific genes have been explored, but they have limited clinical translatability due to the lack of a safe and effective delivery system. A notable obstacle is that dense cardiac tissues suffer from low transfection efficiency of non-proliferative cardiomyocytes, diffusional barriers posed by the extracellular matrix of 3D cardiac muscle, and potential immunogenicity and carcinogenicity associated with viral vectors. Recent progress in the development of non-viral vectors like lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) holds great promise in overcoming these limitations and can make a breakthrough in cardiovascular medicine due to the transient nature of mRNA transfection. A key challenge preventing the development of LNPs that can transfect heart tissue is the absence of in vitro screening platforms that predict in vivo efficacy. In this talk, I will demonstrate that a phenotypic tissue-level cardiac MPS containing a heart micromuscle constructed from human induced pluripotent stem cell cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CM) with a Cre-reporter, can identify LNP/mRNA complexes that diffuse within 3D cardiac micromuscle, transfect cardiomyocytes, and predict LNP transfection in the heart in vivo. Specifically, formulations contained a novel acid-degradable PEG (ADP)-lipid that had enhanced diffusion and gene editing efficiency in the cardiac MPS. In vivo delivery of LNP/mRNA complexes containing luciferase and CRE mRNA into Ai6 mice validated the MPS screening results and demonstrated that ADP-LNPs exhibited significantly higher transfection in the heart, with lower off-target levels of liver uptake compared to a standard LNP formulation. To our knowledge, this is the first study incorporating an organ-on-a-chip microfluidic culture device as a platform for screening novel LNP formulations and successfully identifying one suitable for delivery of mRNA to the heart. Our work will contribute to the progress of new cardiac therapies, and will stimulate the generation of more advanced non-animal models as preclinical platforms in the drug discovery landscape.

Add to Calendar ▼2024-11-18 00:00:002024-11-20 00:00:00Europe/LondonLab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2024Lab-on-a-Chip and Microfluidics World Congress 2024 in Laguna Hills, CaliforniaLaguna Hills, CaliforniaSELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com

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