Biobanking for Precision Medicine: Toward Same-Day CAR T-Cell Therapy: Implantable Biofactories for In Situ T-Cell Engineering
We invite you to attend the Biobanking for Precision Medicine seminar series.
Participants must register for the webinar using WebEx prior to the meeting.
The seminar series, presented by NCI’s Biorepositories and Biospecimen Research Branch (BBRB), explores timely issues in biobanking science, policy, and operations. As precision medicine continues to advance, high-quality biospecimens play a critical role in understanding complex diseases, supporting biomarker discovery, and uncovering mechanisms that drive resistance to therapies. This forward-looking series aims to increase awareness of best practices for collection of biospecimens and associated data and, highlighting opportunities to broaden research participation through biobanking.
Our focus for 2026 is on biospecimen technologies to improve diagnostics, research and therapeutics and this talk will be the second part of the mini-series on this theme.
Meeting Information
| Topic: | Toward Same-Day CAR T-Cell Therapy: Implantable Biofactories for In Situ T-Cell Engineering |
| Date: | Wednesday, July 15th, 2026, 3:00 – 4:30 PM ET 3:00-4:00 PM: Presentation and brief Q&A; 4-4:30 PM: Interactive session with speaker |
| Speaker: | Yevgeny Brudno, PhD Associate Professor Division Pharmacoengineering and Molecular Pharmaceutics Eshelman School of Pharmacy | Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | North Carolina State University |
Abstract
Chimeric Antigen Receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy has transformed the treatment of hematological malignancies, yet broader adoption remains limited by labor-intensive manufacturing, treatment-related toxicities, poor in vivo persistence, and inconsistent long-term efficacy. In this seminar, I will present novel biomaterial-based technologies that simultaneously streamline CAR T-cell production and enhance therapeutic potency. Central to our approach are porous implantable scaffolds that function as in situ biofactories, transducing T cells directly within the host and providing sustained CAR T-cell release. In animal models, this system demonstrates significantly superior anti-tumor efficacy against lymphoma and orthotopic ovarian, lung, and pancreatic cancers compared to equivalent doses of conventionally manufactured CAR T-cells, along with improved in vivo persistence and a more favorable cell phenotype. Collectively, this platform enables a single-day, minimally manipulated CAR T-cell therapeutic strategy that has the potential to reduce the logistical and financial burdens of this otherwise transformative treatment.
Biography
Dr. Yevgeny "Yev" Brudno received dual B.A. degrees in Chemistry and Biophysics from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in Chemical Biology from Harvard University, where he worked with David Liu to develop directed evolution technologies. He then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Wyss Institute at Harvard with David Mooney, focusing on controlled-release drug delivery systems for cancer and regenerative medicine. Yev’s research sits at the interface of materials science, cell therapy and immunoengineering, with a focus on engineering microenvironments that control cell behavior in vivo. His lab develops technologies for bedside and in vivo CAR T cell generation with the aim to replace complex ex vivo manufacturing with simplified, scalable approaches that integrate T cell activation, gene delivery, and expansion within biomaterial scaffolds or directly in the body. By coupling precise control over transport, cell–virus interactions, and local signaling cues, his work seeks to improve the efficiency, accessibility, and therapeutic performance of cell-based therapies.
Please contact Veena Gopalakrishnan for questions about this event.