Preventing Cancer Vaccine Failure via Nanoparticle-Mediated T-cell Receptor Programming


2019 Emerging Leader Award

Matthias Stephan, MD, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center

Matthias Stephan, MD, PhD

Dr. Stephan is devising methods to improve the efficacy of cancer vaccines and reduce the likelihood of vaccine failure. He and his team plan to accomplish this goal by use of nanoparticles to deliver engineered T-cell receptors (TCRs) that optimally bind the most prevalent vaccine protein targets on tumors, reliably inducing robust immunity in a diverse human population regardless of each patient’s preexisting TCR repertoire. Dr. Stephan is Associate Member in the Clinical Research Division of the Program in Immunology at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Washington and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington. He earned an MD at the Medical University of Luebeck in Germany and a PhD in Immunology at Cornell University and conducted postdoctoral training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

published research

Parayath NN, Stephan SB, Koehne AL, Nelson PS, Stephan MT. In vitro-transcribed antigen receptor mRNA nanocarriers for transient expression in circulating T cells in vivo. Nat Commun. 2020.

Parayath NN, Stephan MT. In Situ Programming of CAR T Cells. Annu Rev Biomed Eng. 2021.

Parayath NN, Hao S, Stephan SB, Koehne AL, Watson CE, Stephan MT. Genetic in situ engineering of myeloid regulatory cells controls inflammation in autoimmunity. J Control Release. 2021.

Stephan MT. Empowering patients from within: Emerging nanomedicines for in vivo immune cell reprogramming. Semin Immunol. 2021.

BACK TO OUR PORTFOLIO