Shannon Haughney earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University in 2014. While at ISU, she worked with Nanovaccine Institute research teams as a Graduate Research Assistant in the lab of Balaji Narasimhan. She then spent almost three years working as a Scientist for Novozymes Biologicals Inc. in Raleigh-Durham, NC. In this role, Shannon was involved in the manufacturing of enzymes used in production processes such as bread, beer and laundry detergent. She also worked in the biologics division developing bacterial species used for animal health and nutrition applications.

In 2017, Shannon accepted a position as Associate Principal Scientist with Merck in West Point, PA where she currently works in the vaccines process development division. Shannon helps to develop processes for Merck’s live viral vaccine portfolio. She shared that she enjoys being back in the “vaccine space” where she can “draw back on [her] knowledge from ISU on vaccines and immunology and have a context [for process design] …”

Shannon appreciates that her time at ISU taught her how to “how to do research – how to set up an experiment and how to think through the results.” In 2020, she had the opportunity to work on a project involving a vaccine candidate for COVID-19. She enjoyed the feeling of “contributing to something that will become a product.” Shannon has multiple patent applications pending and is currently completing a Leadership Program with Merck. When not in the lab, she enjoys the trails and green spaces in the Philadelphia area, as well as traveling with family.

In the first half of 2021, four major objectives were identified to support the expansion of opportunities in the Bioscience Platform – Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics:

•            Vaccine-related startup pitches

Meeting attendance exceeded expectations with over 150 registrants and companies from across the globe including Germany, Japan, Argentina, and India. The meeting expanded contacts with existing partners and provided exposure to new collaborators. To date, six companies without an existing presence in Iowa have reached out to discuss technology and partnerships. The presentations were recorded and are available for review.

Please see below “Awards” section to learn more.

To further support Vaccine and Immunotherapeutic advancement, we have formed a commercial support team who will advise and support others to expedite technology development, transfer, and licensure. To leverage and optimize existing programs, we have included members from Pappajohn, iCORP, CyBIZ, Startup Factory, SBDC, BioConnect Iowa, ISU Research Park, Ames Seed Cap, and Ag Startup Engine as well as industry-specific legal and intellectual property experts, USDA and EU regulatory experts, and production/manufacturing experts. Please reach out to mroof@istate.edu if your company would benefit from the support of this powerful team!

We are thrilled to welcome two new members to the Nanovaccine Institute!

Jennifer Filbey, CEO

Genvax Technologies is developing herd-specific, prescription vaccines for the livestock industry. Together, we hope to advance new products that will impact animal health.

Congratulations to Adam Mullis who will be starting a new position as a post-doctoral researcher in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Tufts University in Massachusetts! Adam previously worked as a postdoc and graduate research assistant for the Nanovaccine Institute under the supervision of Dr. Balaji Narasimhan. After a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from North Carolina State University in 2014, he began his graduate studies at Iowa State, earning his PhD in Chemical & Biological Engineering in 2020.

Zahra Davoudi joined ISU in August 2015 as a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. In 2016, she changed her major to Chemical Engineering and began working in the lab of Qun Wang. Davoudi graduated in December 2019 and successfully defended her thesis in July 2020. Her thesis resulted in the publication of multiple journal articles, including the recent article in Marine Drugs: “Gut Organoid as a New Platform to Study Alginate and Chitosan Mediated PLGA Nanoparticles for Drug Delivery.“

In this study, the impact of surface charge on delivering 5-ASA loaded PLGA nanoparticles into the lumen of organoids was investigated. It was concluded that the positively charged chitosan nanoparticles were more readily transported across the epithelium into the lumen than the negatively charged alginate nanoparticles.

Davoudi is currently seeking an industrial position as a research scientist and enjoying time with her 5-month old daughter and husband.

Research Scientist Metin Uz will be leaving the Nanovaccine Institute in July for a new position as an Assistant Professor in the Chemical and Biomedical Engineering department at Cleveland State University in Ohio. While working on his PhD in Chemical Engineering at the Izmir Institute of Technology in Turkey, Uz was a visiting scholar at Iowa State, researching multi-functional gene delivery systems with Nanovaccine Institute member Surya Mallapragada. He returned to Iowa State a year later, working seven years as a postdoc and then associate scientist in Mallapragada’s lab.

His research at the Nanovaccine Institute included biomaterial-based 3D platforms for tissue regeneration, flexible graphene electronics for biomedical applications, and polymers and hydrogels for drug, gene, and vaccine delivery. He also co-founded Degimflex LLC, an Ames, IA start-up developing novel fabrication techniques for biodegradable, implantable, and flexible electronics.

Reuel and a team of his students developed sensor stickers that lab technicians can apply to the outside of flasks and other single-use bioreactors. Now his startup, Skroot Laboratory, Inc., established in 2018 and based in Iowa State’s Roy J. Carver Co-Lab on the north side of campus, is selling that technology.

The big idea for the technology, as it says on the company website, is all about “Helping make medicine.”

“Research is good,” Reuel said. “But it’s even better if it leads to contributions that can do something to better the world.”

Nanovaccine Institute member Sean Murphy is working on a vaccine to prevent malaria. Murphy’s study, published in PLoS Pathogen, revealed that the presence of blood stage malaria parasites had a profoundly negative effect on the efficacy of the vaccine. Vaccinations given seven days apart conferred no protection in study subjects; this timing coincides with the emergence of parasites into the blood from the liver after the previous doses. By changing the timing between doses to five days, a regimen first reported in Nature, PfSPZ-CVac protective efficacy dramatically increased to 75 percent.

Principal Investigators: Jodi McGill and David Verhoeven

Project Title: “Cost-favorable production of a prefusion F subunit vaccine for bovine respiratory syncytial virus”

Project Description: The project will focus on vaccine development to prevent bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) infection in cattle. BRSV is a cause of bovine respiratory disease complex, a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the US beef and dairy industries.

Principal Investigator: David Verhoeven

Project Title: “Investigation of baculovirus produced fiber and hexon for protection from adenovirus in chickens”

Principal Investigators: Michael Wannemuehler and Surya Mallapragada

Project Title: “Use of Pentablock Copolymer Micelles to Enhance the Immune Response of Goats for the Induction of Serum Antibody”

Project Description: This project will assess a novel nanovaccine formulation for its ability to enhance the immune response in goats following vaccination. Goats are commonly used to generate antibodies used in diagnostic medicine; the ability to improve antibody production would be highly beneficial.

Michael Wannemuehler and Surya Mallapragada

“This award provides an opportunity to build a global collaborative network and continue the long history of St. Jude supporting global public health,” said [Nanovaccine Institute member] Richard Webby of the St. Jude Department of Infectious Diseases. 

Please send announcements of publications and other research updates to carlyr@iastate.edu for inclusion in future newsletters and social media.

Stephens LM, Ross KA, Waldstein KA, Legge KL, McLellan JS, Narasimhan B, Varga SM. Prefusion F–Based Polyanhydride Nanovaccine Induces Both Humoral and Cell-Mediated Immunity Resulting in Long-Lasting Protection against Respiratory Syncytial Virus. The Journal of Immunology. 2021 May 1; 206(9): 2122-2134.

Kelly SM, Larsen KR, Darling R, Petersen AC, Bellaire BH, Wannemuehler MJ, Narasimhan B. Single-dose combination nanovaccine induces both rapid and durable humoral immunity and toxin neutralizing antibody responses against Bacillus anthracis. Vaccine (Elsevier). 2021 Jun 29; 39(29): 3862-3870.

Sclichtmann BW, Hepker M, Palanisamy BN, John M, Anantharam V, Kanthasamy AG, Narasimhan B, Mallapragada SK. Nanotechnology-mediated therapeutic strategies against synucleinopathies in neurodegenerative disease. Current Opinion in Chemical Engineering. 2021 March; 3: 100673.

Olson KE, Namminga KL, Lu Y, Schwab AD, Thurston MJ, Abdelmoaty MM, Kumar V, Wojtkiewicz M, Obaro H, Santamaria P, Mosley RL, Gendelman H. Safety, tolerability, and immune-biomarker profiling for year-long sargramostim treatment of Parkinson's disease. EBioMedicine (The Lancet). 2021 May 1; 67: 103380. 

Carly Ross joined the Nanovaccine Institute staff at Iowa State University as a research administrator in April. In her role, she focuses on post-award grant management and financial management, as well as marketing and communications.

Carly brings grant administration, program management, fundraising, and leadership experience from her career as Executive Director of JDRF Greater Iowa and as Director for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Des Moines Field Office.

Carly has a B.A. in Women’s and Gender Studies from Carleton College and a Graduate Diploma in Gender and Development from the Asian Institute of Technology in Thailand. Carly worked and traveled extensively overseas before settling in Des Moines to raise her two daughters. She is a Certified Integrative Nutrition Health Coach from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

Carly’s email address is carlyr@iastate.edu.

The Nanovaccine Institute has a new National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) funded Postdoc Research Associate position with Rizia Bardhan. The position will focus on designing nanoparticles for imaging and immunotherapy in cancer treatment. The application deadline is July 14. Learn more.

The Nanovaccine Institute maintains an active daily presence on social media: Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. Follow us to hear about research updates, publications, funding announcements, partnerships and new members, and other updates from your labs.