Kelsey Swingle
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering
SURF Mentoring
Potential projects/topics: The SURF project will involve engineering lipid nanoparticles for nucleic acid delivery with therapeutic applications in immune engineering and reproductive biology.
Potential skills gained: Students will learn nanoparticle formulation, characterization, and in vitro evaluation using mammalian cell culture techniques. They may also have the opportunity to observe animal studies and participate in post-mortem tissue dissections and processing.
Required qualifications:
- Required skills: Students should ideally have an introductory-level understanding of biology and chemistry
Direct mentor: Faculty/P.I., Post-doctorate, Graduate Student
Research Areas
Dr. Kelsey Swingle is deeply passionate about rationale-driven research with an emphasis on engineering therapeutic and vaccine technologies with translational potential. The Swingle Lab works at the intersection of biomaterials science, immune engineering, and reproductive biology to address global health challenges. We apply technologies such as nucleic acid therapeutics, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immune cell therapies, and lipid nanoparticles towards applications in immune engineering and women’s health. Biomaterials science: The Swingle Lab investigates a range of biomaterial-based drug delivery technologies including ionizable lipids nanoparticles (LNPs), liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, and drug conjugates for diverse therapeutic applications. Capitalizing on their regulatory approval, we employ nucleic acid therapeutics including messenger RNA (mRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA), plasmid DNA, microRNA (miRNA) as well as emerging cargoes such as circular RNA and self-amplifying RNA that have shown promise for enabling durable gene modulation. We use bioengineering design principles to consider (1) the therapeutic application of interest, (2) the genetic pathology of the disorder, (3) the target tissue and cell type, and (4) the appropriate therapeutic payload to increase protein expression or induce gene knockdown and knockout. Immune engineering: Developing safe and effective therapeutics for conditions such as gynecologic cancers, pregnancy disorders, endometriosis, and autoimmune disorders remains a significant global challenge due to their complex immunopathology. While chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell therapies have demonstrated clinical success for treating blood-based cancers, the Swingle lab harnesses these technologies to design either immunostimulatory or immunosuppressive therapeutics for emerging applications. The Swingle lab also works to engineer and evaluate novel nucleic acid-based vaccines for infectious diseases. In particular, we are interested in developing vaccine platforms that have the potential to enable more durable protection against viral infection than the current mRNA vaccines. Reproductive biology: There are distinct biological barriers, microenvironments, and design considerations for female-specific tissues such as the placenta and reproductive tract. The Swingle Lab works to engineer delivery technologies that can overcome these tissue-specific biological barriers for safe and effective therapeutics to treat disorders such as pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, endometriosis, and vaginal infections. Through collaborations within Rice Bioengineering and the Texas Medical Center, we establish and employ a combination of in vitro (2D immortalized cells, transwell models, organoids), ex vivo (primary mouse and human samples), and in vivo (mice, rats, guinea pig) models to study biomaterial interactions with these tissues.
