Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/07/2024
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Location
Communicore, C1-15
Destruction of insulin-producing beta cells by beta cell autoreactive T cells in patients with type 1 diabetes leads to dependency on exogenous insulin injections to regulate glycemia. However, proper metabolic control is often not achieved, and long-term severe complications occur. Beta cell replacement improves metabolic control and quality of life in patients with severe type 1 diabetes, but it requires chronic and systemic immunosuppression. Dr. Tomei has designed innovative tissue-engineering and immune-engineering platforms to replace beta cells without chronic immunosuppression and for targeting beta cell autoreactive T cells to prevent beta cell destruction. She has developed an encapsulation technology that allows ‘wrapping’ individual islets with uniformly thin layers of biomaterial hydrogels, generating capsules that maximize nutrient, glucose and insulin exchange while minimizing graft volumes for optimal beta cell replacement in confined well-vascularized transplantation sites without chronic immunosuppression in type 1 diabetes. She has also designed biomaterial hydrogels that prevent burst release of anti-rejection biological drugs for localized immunomodulation at the transplant site. Finally, she has tissue-engineered lymph node-like stromal cell reticula using macroporous gelatin scaffolds to promote tolerogenic interactions with beta cell autoreactive T cells for targeted immunomodulation to prevent type 1 diabetes.
Bio
Dr. Tomei is the Miami Engineering Career Development Associate Professor with tenure in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Miami, with secondary appointments in the Departments of Surgery, and of Microbiology and Immunology.
She obtained her M.S. in Materials Engineering from the Politecnico of Milan (Italy) in 2004, and her Ph.D. in Bioengineering and Biotechnology from the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL, Switzerland) in 2008.
Dr. Tomei currently directs the Islet Immunoengineering Lab at the Diabetes Research Institute (DRI) of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Applying her unique background in bioengineering and immunology, Dr. Tomei develops novel immunoengineering platforms to prevent rejection after islet transplantation and to promote antigen-specific immunomodulation for the treatment of type 1 diabetes.
Her research has received support from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), Semma Therapeutics, and Sernova Corp for a total of $14.2 million as PI, $7.8 million as Co-I, and $0.19 million as mentor. She has authored 116 peer-reviewed abstracts, 13 manuscripts as corresponding author, 12 as co-author, and 3 as first author; 2 conference proceedings, 1 commentary, 1 editorial, 2 reviews, 2 book chapters, and 4 patents (H-index: 20; Citations: 2,685).
Dr. Tomei has mentored 5 postdocs, 10 Ph.D. students, 21 M.S. students, and 32 undergraduate students, in the fields of immune and tissue engineering.
Dr. Tomei is a standing member of the NIH Biomaterials and Biointerfaces (BMBI) study section and of the California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) grant working groups. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the educational committee of the International Pancreas and Islet Transplantation Association (IPITA) and as a Councilor of the Cell Transplant and Regenerative Medicine Society (CTRMS).
Dr. Tomei was awarded the JDRF Career Development Award in 2016, the Eliahu I. Jury Early Career Research Award in 2016, the Alexander Orr Excellence in Teaching Award in 2018, the Johnson A. Edosomwan Researcher of the Year Award in 2019, and the Young Innovator in Cellular and Molecular Bioengineering Award in 2020.