NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series

Margaret Pittman Lecture

Alternating electrostatic assembly is a tool that makes it possible to create ultrathin film coatings that contain highly controlled quantities of one or more therapeutic molecules within a singular construct. These release systems greatly exceed the usual ranges of traditional degradable polymers. The nature of the layering process enables the incorporation of different drugs within different regions of the thin-film architecture; the result is an ability to uniquely tailor both the independent-release profiles and order-of-release of each therapeutic to the targeted region of the body. The Hammond lab has demonstrated the use of this approach to release or present signaling molecules such as growth factors and small-interfering RNA (siRNA) and DNA to regulate genes to facilitate tissue regeneration in situ for orthopedic implants, address soft-tissue wound healing, deliver vaccines from microneedle surfaces, or administer targeted nanotherapies that are highly synergistic for cancer treatments.

Professor Paula T. Hammond is the David H. Koch Chair Professor of Engineering in the Chemical Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. The core of her work is the use of electrostatics and other complementary interactions to generate functional polymer materials with highly controlled architecture. Her research in nanotechnology encompasses the development of new biomaterials to enable drug delivery from surfaces with spatio-temporal control. She also investigates novel responsive polymer architectures for targeted nanoparticle drug and gene delivery, and self-assembled materials systems for regenerative medicine.

This annual lecture honors Dr. Margaret Pittman, NIH's first female lab chief, who made significant contributions to microbiology and vaccine development, particularly in the areas of pertussis and tetanus, during her long career at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

For more information go to https://oir.nih.gov/wals