CBEE Seminar: Dr. Greg Szeto

 

Engineering molecules to systems for enhancing your immune system

Abstract

The immune system has a big job - to defend your body against infection and disease from birth to death. This talk will give an overview of how research in the Szeto lab is applying engineering approaches and tools to enhance your immune system to improve human health. Three vignettes will be discussed:

1. development of a rapid method for cell engineering to treat cancer,
2. leveraging unique physical and chemical properties of nanoparticles to improve lupus therapy, and
3. defining statistical models that can predict clinical outcomes of diseases using biological big data.

Biography

Dr Greg Szeto is an Assistant Professor in CBEE. His lab is focused on applying tools and methods from engineering to the immune system to develop and improve immune-based therapies for diseases such as cancer and lupus. He obtained Bachelor's degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biomedical and Health Engineering at Carnegie Mellon, and his PhD in Cellular and Molecular Medicine at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. During his postdoc at MIT, Dr. Szeto engineered new tools and analytical approaches to investigate the immune system. His work on a microfluidic device to engineer immune cells was just approved for phase 1 clinical trials to treat patients with HPV+ cancers through SQZ Biotech and Roche. Recent work in the lab has discovered a new drug target for cancer immunotherapy, developed rapid methods for cell engineering, and identified biomarkers in traumatic brain injury. In addition to his research, Dr. Szeto is passionate about how science can represent a positive force for change in public policy, media and communication, and the arts. He is also always thinking about ENCH 225L and programming languages, and is very excited about the UMBC Chem-E Car team to race their first cars at regionals this year.