Self-Assembling Peptides for Advanced Biomaterials
Speaker
Tania Lopez Silva
Postdoctoral Fellow, Chemical Biology Laboratory, National Cancer Institute
About This Talk
Self-assembling peptide hydrogels are versatile biomaterials demonstrating significant potential for biomedical applications, including controlled drug delivery and regenerative medicine. These materials are composed of short peptides designed to self-assemble into supramolecular structures, such as nanofibers, forming highly hydrated nanofibrous networks. Their chemical composition, structure, and material properties can be tuned through molecular design, enabling their use in diverse applications. Despite their promise as biomaterials, the interactions between peptide materials and the immune system remain underexplored, and understanding those interactions is critical for their therapeutic success and clinical translation. This seminar will outline research on how peptide design influences the immune response to self-assembling peptide materials. A library of self-assembling peptide materials with similar viscoelastic properties and fibrous structures but with varying chemical functionalities, charges, and charge distributions was developed to elucidate their effects on the immune response in vivo. This research uncovers distinct and divergent immune responses elicited by differently charged peptide gels through comprehensive characterization of material properties, degradation profiles, histological analyses, immune cell infiltration, inflammatory phenotypes, and molecular mechanisms. These findings establish key design principles for tailoring peptide biomaterials to specific applications and enabling the creation of materials that modulate immune responses without relying on immunomodulatory cargo. This work provides a foundation for developing innovative material-based immunotherapy strategies for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
About the Speaker
Dr. Lopez Silva is a postdoctoral fellow at the Chemical Biology Laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, working with Dr. Joel Schneider. She earned her PhD in Chemistry at Rice University in 2020, where she worked with Dr. Jeffrey Hartgerink, developing diverse peptide materials for medical applications. She obtained her BS in Chemistry at Tec de Monterrey in Mexico. Dr. Lopez Silva’s research focuses on understanding the interplay between peptide-based materials and the immune system. In particular, her work explores the potential of material-based immunomodulation using self-assembling peptide hydrogels. She has been recognized with the 2025 Fellows Award for Research Excellence at the NIH, the Harry B. Weiser Leadership Award for outstanding contributions to the experience of graduate students, and the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología Fellowship for her graduate studies.