SQI member Mark Hersam has won the 2024 Mid-Career Research Award from the Materials Research Society (MRS). Hersam’s research has led to more effective and sustainable nanomaterials used in electronics, energy storage and medicine.

Jes Sanders is a fifth-year general surgery resident at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of SQI members James Mathew and Joseph Leventhal. In this interview, Sanders summarizes his main research project and explains why he was drawn to the field of transplant immunology.

Researchers led by SQI members Guillermo Ameer, John Rogers and Arun Sharma have developed a new soft, flexible, battery-free implant that attaches to the bladder wall to sense filling. Then, it wirelessly transmits data to a smartphone app, so users can monitor their bladder fullness in real time.

While this new device is unnecessary for the average person, it could be a game-changer for people with paralysis, spina bifida, bladder cancer or end-stage bladder disease. The sensor system also can enable clinicians to monitor their patients remotely and continuously to make more informed — and faster — treatment decisions.

New research from a team including SQI member Jonathan Rivnay details how strain and dynamics couple with the external electrical stimulus within a complex polymer system. These systems have both electronic and ionic functionality and the insights developed enable future materials with enhanced device durability and performance in wet, operationally relevant conditions.

In a new study, SQI member C. Shad Thaxton and colleagues showed that treatment with synthetic nanoparticles reduced ovarian tumor growth by more than 50% in human cells and animal models. The nanoparticles appear to cancer cells as cholesterol-rich particles, but they actually block cholesterol uptake and send the cancer cells down a cell death pathway.

A research team led by SQI member Arun Sharma has developed a synthetic, flexible “bladder patch” that outperformed the current standard surgery for severe bladder dysfunction in a long-term, large-animal model — the last step before beginning clinical trials. The “patch” is an elastic-like scaffold that is seeded with a patient’s own stem cells and then sutured to the bladder, where it helps to restore function and promote regeneration in the existing tissue.

SQI member Mark Hersam, whose research has led to more effective and sustainable nanomaterials used in electronics, energy storage, and medicine, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering. Election to the academy is among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer.

The first projects funded through the SQI Synthesizer Research Grant Program feature innovative strategies to target stroke, cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. The program was announced in the summer of 2023 to encourage the development of new approaches in regenerative nanomedicine that could yield transformative improvements in human healthspan.

Northwestern University researchers led by SQI member Evan Scott have developed the first selective therapy to prevent allergic reactions, which can range in severity from itchy hives and watery eyes to trouble breathing and even death. 

To develop the new therapy, researchers decorated nanoparticles with antibodies capable of shutting down specific immune cells (called mast cells) responsible for allergic responses, as well as an allergen that corresponds to the patient’s specific allergy. In this two-step approach, the allergen engages the precise mast cells responsible for the specific allergy, and then the antibodies shut down only those cells.

The latest podcast from the NUCATS Institute's Science in Translation series features SQI member Jonathan Rivnay, who explains how he helped build teams capable of securing large-scale funding from government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). In the episode, Rivnay also shares how his $33 million DARPA and $45 million ARPA-H projects are progressing.