Jessica C. Stark, Ph.D. : Engineering (Glyco)immunology

SEMINAR (In-Person + Zoom) + CAREER TALK

This CBE Seminar will be hosted online via Zoom. RSVP to receive the zoom link by emailing info@bioengineering.ucsb.edu.

Zoom will open after the host has joined at the start of each seminar. You can ask questions through the chat forum and by raising your "hand" and the speaker will call on you. 

Speaker

Jessica C. Stark, Ph.D.

American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow
NIH/NCI Postdoctoral Fellowship
Hanna H. Gray Fellow Finalist Award
Clare Boothe Luce Graduate Fellowship
NIH Biotechnology Training Program Fellowship
Stanford University

Faculty Host

Michelle O'Malley

9:00 am in Bldg. ESB Room #1001 

Engineering (Glyco)immunology

Abstract

Immunoengineering promises to yield the next generation of therapies for unmet medical needs in infectious
disease, autoimmunity, and cancer. A key challenge in the immunoengineering field is our limited
understanding of how the immune system recognizes and responds to glycoconjugates. Glycoconjugates –
biopolymers decorated with sugars, or glycans – coat the surface of every cell. As a result, all of molecular
immunology is influenced by glycoconjugates. The chemical structures of appended glycans are often altered
in disease states and can contribute to pathogenesis by modulating immune responses. Thus, glycoconjugates
represent a vast set of attractive, yet mostly untapped, disease-specific antigens and targets for
immunotherapy.

My research has resulted in a suite of high-throughput and modular technologies for elucidating and
engineering the immune response to glycoconjugates. I engineered a cell-free, or in vitro, technology for on-
demand and portable production of conjugate vaccines that use bacterial cell-surface glycans as antigens. I
showed that cell-free synthesized vaccines elicited glycan-specific immune memory that protected mice
against lethal pathogen challenge. My cell-free approach can be used for rapid and facile biosynthesis of
glycoproteins bearing a variety of user-specified glycan structures, which promises to accelerate interrogation
of their immunomodulatory properties. My current work focuses on identifying and targeting glycoconjugates
that allow cancer cells to evade anti-tumor immune responses. Specifically, I developed a new class of
antibody-lectin bispecifics that enhance anti-tumor immune responses in vitro. The bispecific platform is
modular and can be applied to diverse disease- or cell type-specific antigens and lectin (glycan-binding)
immunoreceptors. In parallel, I established an interaction proteomics pipeline to define tumor-associated
glycoconjugates that engage inhibitory Siglec immunoreceptors, revealing new targets for cancer
immunotherapy. Collectively, my work has helped elucidate the roles of immunomodulatory glycoconjugates in
disease and promises to accelerate development of new vaccines and immunotherapies.

BIO

Dr. Jessica Stark is currently an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi at
Stanford University. Her postdoctoral work focuses on identifying and targeting glyco-immune checkpoints for
cancer immunotherapy. As an NSF Graduate Research Fellow with Prof. Michael Jewett at Northwestern
University, Jessica developed new, portable technologies for glycoprotein therapeutic and vaccine
biomanufacturing. Previously, she received her B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Cornell
University, supported by an Irwin and Joan Jacobs Engineering Scholarship. Jessica’s work has been
recognized with multiple awards and honors, including an NIH/NCI Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Hanna H. Gray
Fellow Finalist Award, a Clare Boothe Luce Graduate Fellowship, an NIH Biotechnology Training Program
Fellowship, induction to the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Honor Society, and the Northwestern Chemical
Engineering Department’s Distinguished Graduate Researcher Award. Jessica is committed to enhancing
diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM through mentoring, outreach, and service activities, most recently as a
selected member of the Stanford Chemistry Department’s Equity and Inclusion committee. To support this
work, Jessica co-developed and launched commercial BioBits® educational kits that promise to increase
access to high-quality biology education by facilitating hands-on learning.