Neil Forbes, PhD
Research Focus - Bacterial Therapies for Cancer Treatment
- Engineer bacteria as intracellular delivery systems to transport therapeutic proteins into cells
- Use bacterial delivery to target signaling pathways to prevent tumor growth and metastasis
- Develop intracellularly delivering Salmonella into immunotherapies that stimulate the innate and adaptive immune systems
- Use synthetic biology techniques to reconfigure the biological components of bacteria to create novel therapeutic tools based on microbial toxins, epigenetic regulators and immune modulators. Integrate these tools with density-sensitive triggers and bacterial-communication circuits to generate tumor for cancer treatment and detection.
- Use computational tumor modeling to understand the interactions between intracellular metabolism, cell growth and molecular transport in order to predict drug responsiveness
- Integrate computational models, microfluidic devices and animal models to quantify molecular transport in biological systems and enable the design of effective therapeutics and drug-delivery system
Representative Publication
Raman V, Van Dessel N, Hall CL, et al. Intracellular delivery of protein drugs with an autonomously lysing bacterial system reduces tumor growth and metastases. Nat Commun. 12(1):6116.