PHILADELPHIA, July 11,
2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hydrogels, water-based gels with
varied biomedical applications, have become a key focus of
bioengineering research in recent years, with the burgeoning field
transforming the way diseases are being studied and potentially
treated. A dentist and engineer, Kyle
Vining, Assistant Professor of Preventive & Restorative
Sciences at Penn Dental Medicine, is developing hydrogels in his
lab to study inflammation. Specifically, his lab is investigating
how physical cues control inflammation of white blood cells with
the goal of developing new treatments for disease, ranging from
cancer to fibrosis, the outcome of many chronic inflammatory
diseases.
Among his projects, he has developed a hydrogel matrix that
mimics the physical properties of fibrosis to see how white
blood cells interact with the surrounding tissue. "Fibrosis is a
physical change in tissues that produces a scar-like matrix that
can impair cancer treatment, inhibit healing, and in general is not
compatible with tissue regeneration," says Vining. "There's been a
lot of effort on antifibrotic drugs, but we're looking at fibrosis
differently. Instead of directly inhibiting fibrosis, we're trying
to understand its consequences for the immune system because the
immune system can be hijacked and become detrimental for your
tissues."
Through a better understanding of the feedback loop between
fibrotic tissue and the immune system, Vining hopes to design
interventions for treating head and neck cancer, including ways to
boost efficacy of immunotherapies. This work also has possible
applications for facilitating wound healing and tissue remodeling
during restorative dental procedures.
In other work, Vining and collaborators from Penn Engineering
are gearing up to develop next-generation treatments for tooth
decay. They are working on encapsulating mRNA inside lipid
nanoparticles that can be delivered locally to dental tissues.
"Using mRNA, we can reprogram the cells to produce their own
medication to help promote healing of the tooth and improve
long-term survival of the tooth cells," Vining says.
Media contact is Beth Adams,
adamsnb@upenn.edu
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SOURCE PENN DENTAL MEDICINE