Immunoengineering research by Johns Hopkins biomedical engineers and JH-TIE researcher was recently featured on the cover of the journal JCI Insight.

Cover of the September 2024 JCI Insight Cover (Volume 9, Issue 18). It is a graphic design of proteins on a cell surface.

The article, Engineered cytokine/antibody fusion proteins improve IL-2 delivery to pro-inflammatory cells and promote antitumor activity,” was selected and featured as the cover for the September 2024 issue. The cover art was illustrated by Ann Seliger, a recent graduate of the Medical and Biological Illustration program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The research discoveries discussed in the article were completed in the Spangler Lab, led by Jamie Spangler, the William R. Brody Faculty Scholar and an associate professor of biomedical engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering at Johns Hopkins.

The study’s lead authors are Jakub Tomala, a research assistant professor in the Spangler Lab, and former postdoctoral fellow Elissa Leonard, who is currently a senior scientist at ModeX Therapeutics. Collaborators from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), and the Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic also contributed to the work. 

The study’s purpose was to develop a roadmap for the design and translation of cytokine/antibody fusion proteins. The researchers honed in on the interleukin-2 (IL-2) cytokine, a protein that can stimulate immune cells to fight off cancer. While promising for cancer treatment, IL-2 cytokines have a short half-life and can cause toxic side effects in patients. To address this, the scientists engineered next-generation proteins, called “immunocytokines,”  by fusing IL-2 cytokines with anti-IL-2 antibodies. According to the researchers, this combination dramatically improves cytokine retention, enhancing the immune system’s ability to attack cancer cells without harming healthy cells.  

Read the journal article here.  

Story by Catherine Graham of the Johns Hopkins Department of Biomedical Engineering.