When Lisa Volpatti arrived at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) for a postdoctoral fellowship in January 2020, she found herself with a lot of desk time.
Nursing a hip injury while trying to navigate the Chicago winter on crutches, she took the opportunity to sit and read as much as she could about immunoengineering. Fresh from a PhD in chemical engineering at MIT, Volpatti was eager to jump into the field with Prof. Jeffrey Hubbell and explore its potential to treat cardiovascular disease.
She thought the fellowship might last two years before she applied for tenure-track faculty positions. Instead, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and her expectations flipped. Instead of working on cardiovascular disease, she pivoted to developing nanoparticle vaccine delivery technology.
“I was able to learn a lot about immunology really quickly by being thrown into that project and taking on a leadership role,” she said. “I feel very fortunate.”
The two-year fellowship turned into four years, and Volpatti eventually did conduct research on protein engineering for cardiovascular disease and cancer immunotherapy. Now, as she transitions to a professorship at Northwestern University, she’s thankful that her postdoc didn’t go as she had originally imagined.
“It really broadened my technical skills and my conceptual understanding of disease,” she said. “It was a really collaborative environment and I’m thankful that I spent four years there.”
Protein engineering and cancer immunotherapy
Volpatti was hooked on chemical engineering ever since her high school chemistry teacher took stock of her skills and knowledge and suggested it as a potential career path. After getting an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh, she received a master’s degree from the University of Cambridge before entering the PhD program at MIT. There, she worked to developed automatic insulin delivery systems for people with diabetes.
“I’ve always been interested in a career where I could have a large impact,” she said. “I was always excited by research, and I’d hoped to come up with a new process or a new drug that could help people.” As she finished up her PhD, she decided to move her research toward immunoengineering and found Hubbell’s lab at PME. “He’s a superstar in the field, and I was excited to work with him,” she said.
After conducting research on vaccine delivery, she began looking at ways to use protein engineering to target inflammation in atherosclerosis. She also worked on a project to improve the efficiency of cancer immunotherapy by using directed RNA editing.
“There were some challenges with the pandemic, too, but I really loved the opportunities UChicago gave me,” she said.
A new lab at Northwestern
Together, her research experiences coalesced into one direction: immunoengineering for metabolic disease. Last fall, she began to apply for tenure-track faculty positions. After receiving several offers, she decided to join Northwestern as an assistant professor with a joint appointment in both biomedical engineering and chemical and biological engineering.
Since officially joining the university on January 1, she has been preparing to transition her research to her new lab, where she will engineer proteins to treat inflammation that underlies metabolic diseases like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, liver disease, and cancer. She also still hopes to use her background in drug delivery systems to make nanoparticles that can modulate the immune system.
She will maintain her connection with UChicago as a visiting scholar, but she looks forward to building her own lab, working with the new Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicago, and getting a chance to make the impact that she has always wanted.
“Northwestern has a very collaborative and supportive environment, and I love being near the lake,” she said. “And it’s great to still be in Chicago and maintain a collaboration at UChicago.”
