The University of Houston has entered into an exclusive license option agreement with AuraVax Therapeutics Inc., a Houston, TX based biotech company developing novel vaccines to help patients defeat debilitating respiratory diseases such as COVID-19. Under terms of the agreement, AuraVax has the option to exclusively license a new intranasal COVID-19 vaccine technology developed by Dr. Navin Varadarajan, M.D. Anderson Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.

Faculty, students recognized for innovation, creative entrepreneurial spirit

Innovation is the engine that drives all of humanity’s greatest achievements – from the creation of the first wheel to electricity to heart transplants. And it is the entrepreneurial spirit that puts these advances into the hands of the people who can use it the most.

T-Cell Editor Creating Powerful Immunotherapy Weapon

As part of a $6 million effort to establish new therapies for high-risk pediatric liver cancer, Navin Varadarajan, associate professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the Cullen College of Engineering, will modify T cells to recognize and kill glypican-3, a molecule found in liver cancer cells.

Navin Varadarajan receives National Science Foundation award to boost effectiveness of immunotherapy

Back in the days when all medicines were made out of chemicals found in nature, manufacturing drugs was somewhat of a breeze.

Take aspirin, for example. The chemical makeup of aspirin is simple; When you look at the drug under a microscope its molecules will all look exactly the same. Aspirin is as easy to characterize as it is to manufacture.

Immunotherapy, in which cells from the human immune system are unleashed to fight disease, has been the big story in cancer treatment over the past few years. When it works, it can spur long-lasting remission in patients for whom other treatments have failed. But most patients don’t benefit, and there is still no good way to predict who will respond.

Immunotherapy, a cancer treatment that utilizes the body’s own immune system to attack cancer cells, has garnered great interest as a relatively new field of medicine that offers an alternative to traditional chemotherapy.

Researchers are gaining momentum with adoptive cell therapy (ACT), a type of immunotherapy that uses the patients’ native or genetically modified immune cells to attack diseases such as cancer and chronic infection.

At this month’s Cullen College of Engineering faculty and staff meeting, Dean Joseph Tedesco announced the recipients of the 2013–2014 teaching awards, which recognize faculty members with outstanding performance in teaching, research and service.

The University of Houston’s weekly “UH Moment” broadcast on KUHF and KUHT recently featured Dr.