Chemical Engineering
Hong Shen
 

Hong Shen
Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering

Contact Information

353 Benson Hall
Box 351750
Seattle, WA 98195-1750		 Phone: 206-543-5961
Fax: 206-685-3451
E-mail: hs24@u.washington.edu

Education

B.A., Tsinghua University (China), 1995
M.S., Tsinghua University (China), 1998
Ph.D., Cornell University, 2004

Research Interests

The focus of my research is to bridge engineering and immunology to develop new technologies and to probe basic biological mechanisms of medical importance. Several directions are pursued:

Nanomedicine

Nanotechnology advances our understanding of biomedical sciences and renovates the therapeutics for various diseases. Our goal in this direction is to build an integrated understanding of the development and dynamics of dendritic cells and their interaction with other cells using nanotechnology. With our understanding, we aim to use engineered dendritic cells as therapeutics for treating cancers and autoimmune diseases.

Immunobiosensing

Sensing and defeating pathogen infections are daunting tasks because of their rapid evolution. The animal kingdom has evolved Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) to deal with this problem. These receptors recognize a set of evolutionally conserved Pathogen-Associated Molecular Patterns (PAMPs), which are unique to the microbial world; this strategy is called pattern recognition. Our goal in this direction is to quantitatively understand how TLRs collaborate with other cellular machinery to differentiate a pathogen within and between families. Our long-term goal is to incorporate TLR recognition into microfluidics for biosensing and intelligent microbicide delivery systems.

System Biology of Pathogen Recognition

Pathogens evolve multiple mechanisms to warrant their survival within host cells, and host cells employ a multitude of strategies to detect and destroy pathogens. Our goal in this direction is to elucidate the spatial and temporal interactions between pathogens and host cells by system biology approaches, e.g. gene or protein chips, multi-scale mathematical modeling.

 

Selected Recent Publications

H. Shen, A. Iwasaki, A crucial role for plasmacytoid dendritic cells in antiviral protection at the genital mucosa by CpG ODN-based microbicide (Under review)

H. Shen, Y. Hu, and W. M. Saltzman (2006). DNA Diffusion in Mucus: effect of size, topology of DNA and transfection reagents. Biophysical Journal (Accepted)

H. Shen, A. L. Ackerman, V. Cody, P. Cresswell, R. L. Edelson, W. M. Saltzman, and D. J. Hanlon (2006). Enhanced and prolonged cross-presentation following endosomal escape of exogenous antigens encapsulated in biodegradable nanoparticles. Immunology 117 (1): 78-88

G. Sanclimens, H. Shen, E. Giralt, F. Albericio, W. M. Saltzman, and M. Royo (2005). Synthesis and screening of a small library of proline based biodendrimers for use as delivery agents. Biopolymers 80: 800-814

J. N. Sachs, H. Shen, W. M. Saltzman (2005). Polymers for Cancer Gene Therapy: browsing the library. Gene Therapy 12(12): 954-955

V. Cody, H. Shen, M. Shlyankevich, R. E. Tigelaar, J. L. Brandsma, and D. J. Hanlon (2005). Generation of dendritic cells from rabbit bone marrow mononuclear cell cultures supplemented with hGM-CSF and hIL-4. Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology 103(3-4): 163-72

H. Shen, J. Tan, and W. M. Saltzman (2004). Surface-mediated gene transfer from DNA/carbonate apatite nancomposite materials of controlled composition and texture. Nature Materials 3 (8): 569-574

H. Shen, E. Goldberg, and W. M. Saltzman (2003). Gene expression and mucosal immune responses after vaginal DNA immunization in mice using a controlled delivery matrix. Journal of Controlled Release 86: 339-348

J. Tan, H. Shen, and W. M. Saltzman (2001). Micro-scale positioning of features influences the rate of polymorphonuclear leukocytes migration. Biophysical Journal 81: 2569-2579

J. Tan, H. Shen, K. L. Carter, and W. M. Saltzman (2000). Controlling human polymorphonuclear leukocytes motility using microfabrication technology. Journal of Biomedical Material Research 51: 694-702

Go to link Recent M.S. Theses
Go to link Recent Ph.D. Dissertations