$3.5M NIH Grant Supports New Autoimmune Disease Treatments

A $3.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health is supporting a University of Maryland researcher’s project to develop a new, multipronged treatment combining degradable patches of microneedles with new therapeutics to combat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and Type 1 diabetes.

Christopher Jewell, Institute Professor of Translational Engineering in the Robert E. Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, is principal investigator for the five-year grant that aims to combat diseases in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its own tissue.

Jewell’s new technologies work without suppressing the normal activities of the immune system; this could ensure patients treated with future therapies can still fight off infections.

“Patients with autoimmune diseases need therapies that are potent and long-lasting, without the non-specific side effects of existing treatments,” said Jewell. “Through this project, we will determine how this technology alters early immune signaling in skin, and ultimately promotes regulatory signaling that could enable next-generation immunotherapies for autoimmune disease.”

The first part of Jewell’s new approach involves microneedle arrays—small patches containing hundreds of short projections that painlessly deliver signals directly to dermal layers. Skin is packed with specialized immune cells, and microneedle arrays are short enough to reach those cells without hitting pain receptors. Since microneedles target this immune-cell-rich layer directly, and because the Jewell Lab is targeting early immune receptors on these cells, this approach efficiently targets and regulates immune signaling. 

Beyond this modulatory capability, microneedle patches have practical advantages: They can be self-administered, don't require refrigeration during transport, and eliminate the need for needles or syringes, making them potentially valuable for expanding treatment access globally.

The second technology the Jewell Lab developed is nanostructured complexes that are assembled entirely from immune signals. These materials contain a combination of the body's own proteins (called self-antigens) and molecules that redirect overactive immune signals against these proteins. The self-antigens signal to the immune system which cells are the body’s own and should not be attacked, while promoting regulatory T cells, which can selectively combat existing self-reactive cells.

What’s more, studies have shown that regulatory T cells can exhibit durability and memory-like functions, meaning they remember what to do; this creates potential for enduring  remission, Jewell said.

The lab’s pre-clinical studies have shown these patches stop or reverse paralysis in multiple sclerosis models without suppressing the immune system.

Jewell’s efforts have led to a number of commercialization efforts, including the company Nodal Therapeutics, based on the Jewell Lab’s lymph node scaffold project. Another venture, Patch Bio, was spun out to commercialize Jewell’s microneedle array patches for a range of immune applications.

“With NIH support,” said Jewell, “our goal is to contribute to next-generation immunotherapies that are effective, long-lasting and safe for autoimmune disease and cancer.”