Bryan Spring

Sponsor: NIH

Disease-homing light delivery by engineering bioluminescent immune cells for whole body precision photomedicine 

Photomedicine avoids traditional side effects of systemic chemotherapy, yet effective outcomes are dependent on direct irradiation from an external light source that limits the scope and the types of cancers that may be treated. This proposal develops a precision photomedicine platform that exploits natural disease-homing properties of the immune system to mediate bioluminescence-activated phototherapy in combination with established technology to deliver photoactive therapeutic agents selectively to tumor cells. Successful, proof-of-concept studies will establish a new paradigm of systemic, whole-body phototherapy by enabling immune cell-based light delivery to deep and diffuse metastatic disease that would otherwise be impractical to treat using an external light source, thereby overcoming a major limitation of conventional phototherapy. Photomedicine avoids traditional side effects of systemic chemotherapy, yet effective outcomes are dependent on direct irradiation from an external light source that limits the scope and the types of cancers that may be treated. The proposal develops a precision photomedicine platform that exploits natural disease-homing properties of the immune system to mediate bioluminescence-activated phototherapy in combination with established technology to deliver photoactive therapeutic agents selectively to tumor cells. Successful, proof-of-concept studies will establish a new paradigm of systemic, whole-body phototherapy by enabling immune cell-based light delivery to deep and diffuse metastatic disease that would otherwise be impractical to treat using an external light source, thereby overcoming a major limitation of conventional phototherapy.  

This high-risk, high-reward concept grant will be performed by the Spring Lab at Northeastern University in collaboration with the Schaffer-Nishimura Lab at Cornell University.