Evan Scott Biomimetic nanomaterials for vaccination and immunotherapy

Research Interests

The overall research objectives of the Scott laboratory are to investigate the basic inflammatory and immunological processes contributing to diverse pathologies and to develop targeted therapeutic approaches using engineering- and materials-based strategies.  More specifically, we aim to achieve controlled elicitation or suppression of the immune system via the rational design of delivery systems that target key inflammatory cell populations.  Our expertise in both immunology and bio/nanomaterials science allows us to identify critical unsolved biomedical questions and to use the underlying biology to drive the design of our materials.  Biomimicry is central to our methodology, as we incorporate the size, morphology, biochemical mechanisms and molecular composition of pathogens into our synthetic delivery systems. Over the last few years, we have focused our efforts on solving fundamental problems in the areas of transplant tolerance, vascular inflammation, tuberculosis vaccination, plasmid delivery, Chagas disease, and cellular targeting in cancer and glaucoma.

Selected Publications

Dendritic peptide-conjugated polymeric nanovectors for non-toxic delivery of plasmid DNA and enhanced non-viral transfection of immune cells. Yi S, Kim S-Y, Vincent MP, Yuk SA, Bobbala S, Du F, and Scott EA. iScience. 2022 July 15;25(7):104555.

Leveraging self-assembled nanobiomaterials for improved cancer immunotherapy. Vincent MP, Navidzadeh JO, Bobbala S, and Scott EA. Cancer Cell. 2022 March 14;40(3):255-276.

Subcutaneous nanotherapy repurposes the immunosuppressive mechanism of rapamycin to enhance allogeneic islet graft viability. Burke JA, Zhang X, Bobbala S, Frey MA, Bohorquez Fuentes C, Freire Haddad H, Allen SD, Richardson RAK, Ameer GA, and Scott EA. Nature Nanotechnology. 2022 March;17(3):319-330. 

Enhancing subcutaneous injection and target tissue accumulation of nanoparticles via co-administration with macropinocytosis inhibitory nanoparticles (MiNP). Stack T, Liu Y, Frey M, Bobbala S, Vincent M, and Scott E. Nanoscale Horizons. 2021 May 1;6(5):393-400.

Surface chemistry-mediated modulation of adsorbed albumin folding state specifies nanocarrier clearance by distinct macrophage subsets. Vincent MP, Bobbala S, Karabin NB, Frey M, Liu Y, Navidzadeh JO, Stack T, and Scott EA. Nature Communications. 2021 January 28;12(1):648.

View all publications by Evan Scott listed in the National Library of Medicine (PubMed). Current and former IBiS students in blue.