Research Areas

Dr. Kelsey Swingle is deeply passionate about rationale-driven research with an emphasis on engineering therapeutic and vaccine technologies with translational potential. The Swingle Lab works at the intersection of biomaterials science, immune engineering, and reproductive biology to address global health challenges. We apply technologies such as nucleic acid therapeutics, chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) immune cell therapies, and lipid nanoparticles towards applications in immune engineering and women’s health. Biomaterials science: The Swingle Lab investigates a range of biomaterial-based drug delivery technologies including ionizable lipids nanoparticles (LNPs), liposomes, polymeric nanoparticles, and drug conjugates for diverse therapeutic applications. Capitalizing on their regulatory approval, we employ nucleic acid therapeutics including messenger RNA (mRNA), small interfering RNA (siRNA), plasmid DNA, microRNA (miRNA) as well as emerging cargoes such as circular RNA and self-amplifying RNA that have shown promise for enabling durable gene modulation. We use bioengineering design principles to consider (1) the therapeutic application of interest, (2) the genetic pathology of the disorder, (3) the target tissue and cell type, and (4) the appropriate therapeutic payload to increase protein expression or induce gene knockdown and knockout. Immune engineering: Developing safe and effective therapeutics for conditions such as gynecologic cancers, pregnancy disorders, endometriosis, and autoimmune disorders remains a significant global challenge due to their complex immunopathology. While chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) cell therapies have demonstrated clinical success for treating blood-based cancers, the Swingle lab harnesses these technologies to design either immunostimulatory or immunosuppressive therapeutics for emerging applications. The Swingle lab also works to engineer and evaluate novel nucleic acid-based vaccines for infectious diseases. In particular, we are interested in developing vaccine platforms that have the potential to enable more durable protection against viral infection than the current mRNA vaccines. Reproductive biology: There are distinct biological barriers, microenvironments, and design considerations for female-specific tissues such as the placenta and reproductive tract. The Swingle Lab works to engineer delivery technologies that can overcome these tissue-specific biological barriers for safe and effective therapeutics to treat disorders such as pre-eclampsia, preterm birth, endometriosis, and vaginal infections. Through collaborations within Rice Bioengineering and the Texas Medical Center, we establish and employ a combination of in vitro (2D immortalized cells, transwell models, organoids), ex vivo (primary mouse and human samples), and in vivo (mice, rats, guinea pig) models to study biomaterial interactions with these tissues.