Shivani is a rising senior at the University of Washington Seattle, majoring in Bioengineering with a minor in Music. At UW, Shivani works in the DeForest Lab, where she develops novel protein-based hydrogels for targeted drug delivery.
As an Amgen Scholar at UCLA, Shivani is working in Dr. Nasim Annabi’s lab which researches advanced biomaterials and systems for therapeutic delivery and disease detection. Her project focuses on developing a new mucoadhesive hydrogel that can be used for ocular delivery of extracellular vesicles (EVs). Current ocular delivery methods, such as eye drops or ointments, suffer from poor bioavailability due to the corneal epithelium barrier and fast clearance from blinking. Existing hydrogel and nanoparticle ocular delivery systems struggle with adhesion and control over release kinetics. Shivani’s work aims to develop a new hydrogel that will have improved mucoadhesion to allow for sustained release of EVs on the ocular surface. She will be testing the hydrogel’s mucoadhesion through in vitro wound closure and burst pressure tests. She will also be testing the therapeutic release profile from the hydrogel with different crosslinking densities to determine how EV release varies with material properties.
Shivani would like to thank her graduate student mentor, Jim Liu, and her PI, Dr. Annabi, for their mentorship and guidance, as well as the Amgen Foundation for this incredible opportunity.