Eric A. Appel, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Stanford University

Research Description: The Appel Lab at Stanford University aims to develop novel biomaterials to meet the need for encapsulation, stabilization, and controlled release of therapeutic cargo. Dr. Appel has extensive expertise in the synthesis and characterization of polymeric biomaterials that enable the entrapment and userdefined release of multifarious compounds, including release of both small molecule therapeutics and biologics such as antibodies over timeframes extending upwards of months. These materials exploit a diverse design toolbox and have the potential to be powerfully transformational in the treatment of a range of disease targets, including cancer, infectious disease, obesity and diabetes. We have demonstrated that sustained co-delivery of subunit vaccine components in these hydrogels over the course of 4 weeks improves the potency and durability of humoral immune responses, and enhances affinity maturation by over 1000-fold, when compared to the same vaccine delivered in a standard bolus administration (Roth et al, ACS Central Science, 2020). We have also recently demonstrated that our injectable hydrogels can improve the safety and efficacy of combination cancer immunotherapies based on CD40 agonists by redistributing CD40 agonist exposure to tumors and tumor draining lymph nodes (Correa et al, Advanced Science, 2022). We have also shown that these hydrogels can be used as transient inflammatory niches to improve the efficacy of CAR-T therapies by enhancing in vivo expansion and activation of the adoptive cells (Grosskopf et al, Science Advances, 2022). Beyond these hydrogel materials, we’ve also developed a novel copolymer excipient technology for stabilizing biologics in formulation that enables monomeric insulin formulations exhibiting ultra-fast pharmacokinetics in diabetic pigs (Mann et al, Science Trans Med, 2020). While Dr. Appel’s primary affiliation is in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Dr. Appel holds a courtesy faculty position in the Department of Pediatrics – Endocrinology due to his extensive research efforts in the development of novel therapeutics for obesity and diabetes, including use and delivery of GLP1R agonists (d'Aquino et al 2023). Dr. Appel’s group collaborates extensively with many members of the NORC, including Drs. Knowles, Gardner, Svensson, Chou, and Seung Kim.