Viral Nanoparticles: Tools for Material Science and Biomedicine

Dr. Nicole F. Steinmetz is assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. Dr. Steinmetz's major area of professional interest lies in the application of complex viral nanoparticle (VNP) formulations for biomedicine and materials science. As a postdoctoral fellow at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California, her efforts have focused on the development of VNP formulations for cancer detection and treatment (2007-2010). During her dissertation work in the field of nanotechnology at the John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK, she created multiple 3D VNP multilayered thin-film arrays for potential applications in sensors or nanoelectronics (2004-2007). Dr. Steinmetz is a 2009 recipient of the NIH/NIBIB Pathway to Independence Grant (K99/R00), a previous American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow, former Marie Curie EST Fellow, winner of the Bryan Harrison Prize (2006), and 2007 Biosciences Federation Science Communication Award winner. Her early training was at RWTH Aachen University, Germany, where she received her diploma (equivalent to masters) with honors in molecular biology in 2004.

Dr. Marianne Manchester specializes in novel virus-based nanotechnologies for tumor targeting and vaccine development. She has developed tissue-directed nanoparticles that show specificity for tumors in vivo and was the first to demonstrate the utility of viral nanoparticles as a tool for intravital vascular imaging. She has been instrumental in developing virus-based structural scaffolds for antigen presentation that demonstrate the positive effects of whole antigen display and antigen multivalency on protective immunity. Since 2002, she has led NIH-sponsored programs in tumor nanotechnology and multivalent nanotechnologies for vaccine development. She has also developed novel mass spectrometry-based approaches for identifying new therapeutic targets for human disease.