Assistant Professor of Chemistry Baofu Qiao, working with a team of researchers at Northwestern University, has developed the first selective therapy to effectively prevent allergic reactions. These common immune system responses, intimately familiar to nearly 1 in 3 American adults, can range in severity from bothersome hives and watery eyes to trouble breathing and even death. The exciting results of their pilot mouse study were published in January in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

To develop the therapy, the team coated nanoparticles, infinitesimal units of matter, with antibodies capable of shutting down the specific immune cells, or mast cells, that are responsible for allergic responses. The nanoparticles also carry an allergen that corresponds to the patient’s specific allergy. If a person is allergic to peanuts, for example, the nanoparticle carries a peanut protein.

“Surprisingly, we found that the surface of the nanoparticles is adaptive. It adjusts its polar and nonpolar domains based on the antibody neighbors,” said Qiao, who supervised the atomistic simulation. "The soft surface of the nanoparticles enables the antibodies to preserve their function while targeting specific proteins."

In this two-step approach, the allergen engages the specific mast cells responsible for the allergy, and then the antibodies shut down only those cells. This highly targeted method enables the therapy to selectively prevent specific allergies without suppressing the entire immune system.

In a mouse study, the therapy demonstrated an astonishing 100% success in preventing allergic responses without noticeable side effects.

“Currently, there are no methods available to specifically target mast cells,” said Northwestern’s Dr. Evan A. Scott, who led the study. “All we have are medications like antihistamines to treat symptoms, and those don’t prevent allergies. They counteract effects of histamines after the mast cells already have been activated. If we had a way to inactivate the mast cells that respond to specific allergens, then we could stop dangerous immune responses in severe situations like anaphylaxis as well as less serious responses like seasonal allergies.”

“The biggest unmet need is in anaphylaxis, which can be life-threatening,” said Northwestern’s Dr. Bruce Bochner, an allergy expert and study co-author. “Certain forms of oral immunotherapy might be helpful in some cases, but we currently don’t have any FDA-approved treatment options that consistently prevent such reactions other than avoiding the offending food or agent. Otherwise, treatments like epinephrine are given to treat severe reactions — not prevent them. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a safe and effective treatment for food allergy that consistently made it possible to reintroduce a food into the diet that you used to have to strictly avoid?”

The implications of the study are vast. Armed with these promising results, the researchers plan to explore their nanotherapy for treating other mast cell-related diseases, including mastocytosis, a rare form of mast cell cancer. They also are investigating loading drugs inside the nanoparticles to selectively kill mast cells in mastocytosis without injuring other cell types.

David Gruber Helps Pioneer Revolutionary Technology to Study Deep-Sea Life

Multi-institution team uses innovative robotic device to capture tissue in minutes, preserving it in situ for unprecedented close encounters.

Baruch College Professor David Gruber and a multidisciplinary team of ocean engineers, roboticists, and biologists have successfully demonstrated new technologies that can shave years off the process of determining whether a new or rare species of marine life has been discovered.

Dr. Gruber and a team of 15 researchers from six institutions used revolutionary advances in underwater imaging, robotics, and genomic sequencing to obtain preserved tissues and high-resolution images of some of the most fragile animals in the deep ocean.

The research team — led by the University of Rhode Island in collaboration with Baruch College, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, Harvard University, and PA Consulting — published their findings in Science Advances today.

“The vision was: How might a marine biologist work to better understand and connect to deep-sea life decades or centuries into the future?” said Dr. Gruber, CUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology at Baruch College.

“This is a demonstration of how an interdisciplinary team could work collaboratively to provide an enormous amount of new information on deep-sea life after only one brief encounter. The ultimate goal is to continue down this path and refine the technology to be as minimally invasive as possible — akin to a doctor’s check-up in the deep sea,”

Gruber added.

So far, their new method has been featured in:

NewScientist 

The Boston Globe

Science Daily

Mirage 

Science Magazine

Phys.org

Astrobiology

EurekAlert

Rejuvenating Learning: Baruch's MakerHub Enhances Education with Trial, Error, and Hands-On Technology

Professor of Fine Arts Zoë Sheehan Saldaña

Sometimes, it doesn’t matter how much enthusiasm you initially bring to your subject of choice. The deeper your studies go, and the more familiar with the field you become, habitual approaches can soon make material seem dry and repetitive for students and instructors alike. The minds behind Baruch’s MakerHub are seeking to change that, by making any subject – from Biochemistry to English Literature – more hands on, more creative, and more immediately captivating by incorporating cutting-edge technology and art-making practices.

The MakerHub, a program of the Lawrence N. Field Center of Entrepreneurship, serves as an inclusive, interdisciplinary space where the Baruch community can engage with advanced technologies — like 3D printing, electronics, multimedia production, virtual/augmented reality, and computer programming — regardless of their major or expertise. 

Artist and Professor of Fine Arts Zoë Sheehan Saldaña, helps oversee the MakerHub, offering workshops designed to democratize access to these technologies, making them a more universal and common educational resource. “We work with people across the entire college,” she said, “giving access to various technologies that might be ‘non-traditional’ or simply something they don’t have access to. It's not a Weissman thing, or a Zicklin thing, or anything like that. It's a Baruch-wide resource.” 

Additionally supported by the Baruch Student Technology Fees, the MakerHub extends its resources beyond the student body to faculty members, particularly those who want to add a new dimension to their classes but lack the resources or knowledge for technology focused learning.

Professor Jean Gaffney, Professor of Chemistry and Natural Sciences, reached out to MakerHub last semester to brainstorm ways to inspire her biochemistry undergrads.

“When you become a professor and you have your own research lab, you are expected to be creative, but I felt I’d lost some of my creativity, repeating the same things on my syllabus over and over again. I feel like these kinds of hands-on experiences let the students – and me – be inventive for a little while. It was just super fun and successful. I can’t wait to do it again with my class next year.”

Collaboratively, Saldaña and Gaffney pioneered a workshop wherein students used advanced 3D printers to fabricate intricate resin models of protein structures, embracing the learning process' inherent trial and error. Even the mistakes were spectacular. 

“Science is messy and involves a lot of failure,” Saldaña said. “Professor Gaffney was concerned that the students weren't really getting a whole lot of access to that mess – the idea of science as an experiment that just might fail. She wanted to provide some hands-on stuff for the students to do. That would be useful especially if it didn't work.”

In addition to fostering creativity in the classroom, the MakerHub organizes workshops, events, and competitions for all Baruch students and staff, further supporting individual creative endeavors.

Go to: blogs.baruch.cuny.edu/makerhub/ to get the creative juices flowing.

Mishkin Gallery Transforms Into Cinema in February

Charles Lane, Sidewalk Stories (film still), 1989. Courtesy Kino Lorber.

Mishkin Gallery is pleased to present The Right to the City: Public Space on Film (running January 29 - March 1), a vibrant selection of cinematic works exploring the spatial politics of belonging in urban environments. The notion of public space is a vision of the collective: in urban life, density necessitates a sharing of resources. Shared spaces — the commons — demonstrate how we can, and must, live together.

The included films take place in, and take as a subject, the public sphere. The spaces in these films act as sites of leisure, labor, protest, surveillance — topographies of everyday life. We see how architecture, real estate, and public policy can determine the structure of the built and natural environments — but just as often, how people can improvise and deviate, and creatively misuse these shared spaces. This program poses the question: what does it mean to truly be public?

The Right to the City: Public Space on Film has been curated by Alexandra Tell. The exhibition is made possible by Friends of the Mishkin Gallery and the Weissman School of Arts and Sciences at Baruch College (CUNY).