Natalie Artzi

The research in our lab focuses on tissue-responsive nanomaterials for biomedical applications and is dedicated to leveraging materials science and engineering, imaging and basic science to improve human health. We develop smart material platforms that can sense the environment, enhance tissue repair and report on tissue state. Tissue- and application-specific materials are developed to provide mechanical support, release therapeutic molecules or modify endogenous cells towards a specific therapeutic phenotype. We rationally design personalized materials and medical devices to combat a myriad of diseases such as cancer, autoimmune disease, and gastrointestinal disease, as well as to improve tissue regeneration in orthopedic applications. The lab has helped establish the emerging field of structural nanomedicine where we emphasize that defining, designing, and optimizing the structures of nanomedicines are critical to developing effective therapies because their architectures — not just the identity of their components —determines potency. In nanomedicine, the cellular export of nanomaterials has been less explored than uptake. Our lab presented the idea of the “paracrine transfer effect” (PTE), where nanomaterials are first internalized by a “waypoint” cell and then exported to a “destination” cell, influencing both in potentially exploitable ways. We propose future research directions to better understand and utilize the PTE in developing more effective nanomedicines. Our nanomedicines and macro-scale materials expand the drug therapeutic window and enable investigating the drug mechanism of action to further inform the choice, order, and duration of combination therapies.