Hybrid mammalian-bacterial extracellular vesicle engineering

Designed and executed experiments to fuse bacterial and mammalian extracellular vesicles into a hybrid delivery vehicle optimized to cross intestinal fluid barriers. Evaluated drug loading capacity and release kinetics of engineered nanocarriers across two parallel projects on payload delivery and biocompatibility. Scaled vesicle production through cell transfection and bioreactor maintenance under sterile mammalian cell culture, and used Western blot, ELISA, RT-PCR, and qPCR to assess protein and gene expression of the vesicle constructs.

The question

How can extracellular vesicles be engineered to traverse intestinal fluid barriers for oral biologics delivery?

What I did

Engineered a hybrid mammalian-bacterial extracellular vesicle designed to cross intestinal fluid barriers in the Jay Lab. Designed and executed experiments to fuse bacterial and mammalian extracellular vesicles into a hybrid delivery vehicle, evaluated drug loading capacity and release kinetics of engineered nanocarriers across two parallel projects on payload delivery and biocompatibility, and scaled vesicle production through cell transfection and bioreactor maintenance under sterile mammalian cell culture.

Methods and tools

Mammalian cell culture and transfection, bioreactor maintenance, Western blot, ELISA, RT-PCR, and qPCR.