Dr. Gregory A. Hudalla, assistant professor & J. Crayton Pruitt Family Term Fellow, was recently awarded a National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) Trailblazer R21 Award for his grant entitled, “Supramolecular hydrogels for localized delivery of immunomodulatory enzymes.”

The proposed project aims to develop biomaterials with integrated immunomodulatory enzymes as a new treatment modality for inflammatory diseases. States of chronic inflammation resulting from aberrant immune system recognition of self as non-self are a significant clinical and financial burden because they are often incurable, and are typically managed by administering costly biologic drugs that can render patients immunodeficient or immunocompromised. With this award, the proposed research program will develop locally administered biomaterials that can recapitulate natural mechanisms to locally resolve inflammation via enzymes that catalyze the conversion of immunostimulatory signals to immunosuppressive signals.

The Trailblazer R21 Award is an opportunity for new and early stage investigators to pursue research programs of high interest to the NIBIB at the interface of the life sciences with engineering and the physical sciences. A Trailblazer project may be exploratory, developmental, proof of concept, or high risk-high impact, and may be technology design-directed, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven.