Quantifying Polyvalent Binding of Nanoparticles to T-cell Receptor-Nanoclusters
I am a PhD student in the Quantitative Life Sciences program under the supervision of Prof. Anmar Khadra. My research focuses primarily on dynamical modeling of Nanoparticle-T-cell interactions. I attempt to decipher the role of the binding geometry in inducing T-cell activation to better optimize NP design for treatment of Type 1 Diabetes.
Quantifying Polyvalent Binding of Nanoparticles to T-cell Receptor-Nanoclusters
Nanoparticles (NPs) coated with peptide-major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs) can be used as a
therapy to treat autoimmune diseases. They do so by reprogramming a specific type of CD4+ T cells into
disease-suppressing T regulatory type 1 (Tr1) cells by binding to their T cell receptors (TCRs) expressed as
TCR-nanoclusters (TCRnc). The presence of these TCR-nanoclusters distinguishes these mature, high-avidity T cells from their naive counterparts. We investigate the ability of different nanoparticle designs to selectively target these high-avidity T cells. By varying NP radius, pMHC number and quality, we identify NPs able to preferentially bind both clustered and homogenous surfaces of TCRs.