(4di) Engineered Immune Cells with Nanoparticles for Advanced Combinatorial Cancer Theranostics and Post-Treatment Assessment

Nanoparticles have shown various applications including energy, electronics, environmental testing, and the biomedical field. Especially, biomedical application of nanoparticles for therapy and diagnosis initiated the new research field of nanomedicine, in which the use of nanoparticles for bioimaging, drug delivery, cancer therapy, etc. During my Ph.D. years, my research aimed at designing stimuli-responsive and biocompatible nanoparticles for on-demand drug delivery to the target site upon specific triggers, such as light, biomolecules, pH gradient, and redox potential. Especially, the surfaces of nanoparticles were modified with oligomeric functional DNA strands, which enabled programmable nanoparticle assembly/disassembly and predictable dynamic behavior of nanoparticles in biological environments.

As a postdoctoral research scientist in Dr. Stanislav Emelianov’s group, I have learned about medical imaging systems, specifically clinically relevant ultrasound and photoacoustic (US/PA) imaging. My work has focused on developing functional nanomaterials as a contrast agent for advanced US/PA imaging to track cells or detect biomolecules in a microenvironment. Mainly, I was interested in tracking T cells, and thus have engineered T cells with nanoparticles (contrast agent) to be imageable under US/PA imaging. In line with that, I also have been developing nanosensors to enable real-time imaging of the tumor microenvironment or immune cell activity in a noninvasive manner.

My research goal is to apply multidisciplinary pieces of knowledge for developing innovative approaches in cancer theranostics and post-treatment assessment. Throughout my research experience, I realized that combining nanotechnology with clinically approved medical imaging technology and cell engineering would likely lead to practical and advanced therapeutic approaches. Nanotechnology can significantly augment current imaging techniques and provide additional functionality to the cells through cell engineering with nanomaterials. By marrying my graduate school expertise of functional nanoparticles and their modification with my postdoctoral studies in bioimaging and immune cell engineering, my future research aimed at nanoparticle-augmented engineering of immune cellular systems with spatiotemporally controllable, enhanced, and non-native functions that improve their impact and capability. These nanoparticle-augmented immune cells will be instrumental for the applications of next-generation combinatorial cancer theranostics and treatment monitoring.

Teaching Interests and Experience

With my training in chemistry, nanomaterials science, and biomedical engineering, I can teach (bio)chemistry for engineers, nanomaterials, cell engineering, and medical imaging-related courses for undergraduate students. The teaching courses could be more specific for graduate students – i.e., nanomedicine, drug delivery, biopolymers, tissue engineering, and cell therapy, which are more related to graduate students’ research in their laboratories.

During my Ph.D. course, I have experience doing TA for undergraduate students’ general chemistry class and chemistry lab class and was selected as the best TA of the year. I also served as a guest lecturer of CHEM652: Biomedical polymers for drug delivery at POSTECH. At Georgia Tech, I served as a guest lecturer in a graduate course ME8873: Organs on Chips in Nanomedicine, and gave a flash talk to Ultrasound Lab: Nanomaterials for Contrast Agent.

As a research mentor/tutor, I served as a tutor for two high school students (High School Research Intern Program at Georgia Tech), a mentor for four undergraduate students (BME Undergraduate Research Program at Georgia Tech), and am currently mentoring two graduate students in Stanislav Emelanov’s group.

Selected Publications (33 total, 15 lead-author)

1. Kim J, Lee YM, Kang Y, Kim WJ. “Tumor-homing, size-tunable clustered nanoparticles for anticancer therapeutics” ACS Nano, 2014, 8(9), 9358-9367.
2. Kim J, Jo C, Lim WG, Jung S et al. “Programmed nanoparticle-loaded nanoparticles for deep-penetrating 3D cancer therapy” Advanced Materials, 2018, 30(29), 1707557.
3. Kim J, Jang D, Park H, Jung S et al. “Functional DNA-driven dynamic nanoconstructs for biomolecule capture and drug delivery” Advanced Materials, 2018, 30(45), 1703751.
4. Kim J, Dey A, Malhotra A, Liu J et al. “Engineered biomimetic nanoparticle for dual targeting of cancer stem-like cell population in sonic hedgehog medulloblastoma” PNAS, 2020, 117(39), 24205-24212
5. Kim J, Yu AM, Kubelick KP, Emelianov SY. “Aptamer-decorated gold nanoparticles for selective capture and detection of human matrix metalloproteinase-9 using molecular photoacoustic imaging” Submitted

Funding Experience

1. NIH 1K99CA263016-A1. “Nanoparticle-augmented image-guided CAR T therapy and post-treatment assessment” (2022–2027, Pending), Role: PI