Abstract Messenger RNA has long been touted as a next-generation therapeutic modality for infectious disease, cancer, and genetic disorders. Lipid nanoparticles provide an elegant delivery strategy for mRNA cargo to help realize this potential for vaccination. However, systemic exposure seen with traditional LNP formulations can have significant implications...

An in vitro 3D collagen hydrogel culture system to study host-mycobacteria infection provides a significantly longer window to investigate the virulence mechanisms of the pathogen. It recapitulates important characteristics of human tuberculosis infection such as gene expression, the formation of foamy macrophages, and mycobacterial cording. This...

Abstract Heart valve disease poses a significant clinical challenge, especially in pediatric populations, due to the inability of existing valve replacements to grow or respond biologically to their microenvironment. Tissue-engineered heart valves (TEHVs) provide a solution by facilitating patient-specific models for self-repair and remodeling. In...

Abstract Intervertebral disc degeneration (IVDD) is the primary cause of low back pain, with oxidative stress being a recognized factor that causes its development. Presently, low back pain imposes a significant global economic burden. However, the effectiveness of treatments for IVDD remains extremely limited. Therefore, this study aims to explore...

Abstract Food allergy is a prevalent and potentially deadly disease caused by inadvertent sensitization to benign food antigens. Pathogenic Th2 cells are a major driver for disease, and allergen-specific immunotherapies (AIT) aim to increase the allergen threshold required to elicit severe allergic symptoms. However, the majority of AIT approaches...

Abstract The immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment (ITME) of osteosarcoma (OS) poses a significant obstacle to the efficacy of existing immunotherapies. Despite the attempt of novel immune strategies such as immune checkpoint inhibitors and tumor vaccines, their effectiveness remains suboptimal due to the inherent difficulty in mitigating ITME simultaneously...