Northeastern University     |     Department of Chemical Engineering


Our lab engineers solutions to address current challenges in medicine. We design, synthesize, and evaluate new biomaterials that change the way we deliver drugs and cells. These materials exhibit cooperative or heterogeneous features, exemplified in nature.

A central theme in our lab is understanding how local organization affects global properties. Our biologically-inspired materials illustrate this concept via assembly at two length scales:

  • Molecular (<1 μm) for Targeted Therapeutics, and
  • Cellular (>1 μm) for Tissue Architecture.

Our research exploits current knowledge of cancer and vascular biology to engineer new drug delivery and tissue engineering platforms.

September 2018
Debra Auguste elected to BMES board of directors

August 2018
Debra Auguste selected as BMES Fellow

September 2016
Debra Auguste joins the Chemical Engineering department at Northeastern University in Fall 2016 as a Professor. Read more.

June 2015
Congrats Biran for receiving $1000 CUNY Postdoc Travel Award to attend the Cancer Nanotechnology GRC.

April 2015
Congratulations to Biran Wang on his AFM paper published in Biomaterials, 1st paper made in CCNY!!.

October 2014
Debra Auguste, Peng Guo, Biran Wang, Liz Mansfield will be attending the BMES annul meeting at San Antonio, TX

May 2014
Debra Auguste will be attending the 2014 Indo-American Frontiers of Engineering Symposium in Mysore, India.

January 2014
 Congratulations Debra Auguste was awarded the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers(PECASE).

August 2013
Debra Auguste will be attending the Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering GRC

April 2013
Welcome Daxing Liu to the group!

February 2013
Welcome Biran Wang to the Auguste Lab!

September 2012
Debra Auguste was awarded the NIH Director's New Innovator Award.

April 2012
Congratulations to Marjan Rafat for defending her PhD dissertation.

May 2011
Debra Auguste will be presenting on Tissue Origami at the 4th International Conference on Tissue Engineering in Chania, Crete, Greece.

April 2011
Congratulations Tina Tan for getting into Harvard Medical School!

March 2011
Congratulations to George Ye for winning $10,000 in the business competition Harvard i3 Innovation Challenge TECH Prize. See press release.

February 2011
Debra Auguste was awarded the NSF CAREER Award. See press release.

December 2010
Congratulations Jin-Oh You for your drug delivery review published in Journal of Biological Engineering. This review focuses on the use of bioresponsive polymers in drug delivery.

Boazak EM, Greene Jr VK, Auguste DT. The effect of heterobifunctional crosslinkers on HEMA hydrogel modulus and toughness. PloS one. 2019 May 9;14(5):e0215895.

Kim B, Pena CD,  Auguste DT.  Targeted lipid nanoemulsions encapsulating epigenetic drugs exhibit selective cytotoxicity on CDH1-/FOXM1+ triple negative breast cancer cells. Molecular pharmaceutics. 2019 Mar 18.

Guo P, Yang J, Liu D, Huang L, Fell G, Huang J, Moses MA, Auguste DT. Dual complementary liposomes inhibit triple-negative breast tumor progression and metastasis. Science advances. 2019 Mar 1;5(3):eaav5010.

Large DE, Soucy JR, Hebert, J, Auguste DT. Advances in receptor-mediated, tumor-targeted drug delivery. Advanced Therapeutics. 2018 Sept; 1-27.

Liu D, Auguste DT. Peptide density targets and impedes triple negative breast cancer metastasis. Nature Communications. 2018 Jul; 9:2612.

Guo P, Wang B, Liu D, Yang J, Subramanyam K, McCarthy C, Hebert J, Moses M, Auguste DT. Using atomic force microscopy to predict tumor specificity of ICAM1 antibody-directed nanomedicines. Nano Letters. 2018 April; 18:2254-2262

Guo P, Liu D, Subramanyam K, Wang B, Yang J, Huang J, Auguste DT, Moses MA. Nanoparticle elasticity directs tumor uptake. Nature Communications. 2018 Jan; 9:130

Mansfield L, Greene V, Auguste DT. Patterned, tubular scaffolds mimic longitudinal and radial mechanics of the neonatal trachea. Acta Biomaterialia. Accepted.

Guo P, Yang J, Jia D, Moses MA, Auguste DT. ICAM-1-Targeted, Lcn2 siRNA-Encapsulating Liposomes are Potent Anti-angiogenic Agents for Triple Negative Breast Cancer, Theranostics. 2016 Jan 1;6(1):1-13.

Guo P, Huang J, Wang L, Jia D, Yang J, Dillon DA, et al. ICAM-1 as a molecular target for triple negative breast cancer. Proc Natl Acad Sci [Internet]. 2014 Sep 29 [cited 2014 Oct 1]; Available from: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1408556111

Guo P, You J-O, Yang J, Jia D, Moses MA, Auguste DT. Inhibiting Metastatic Breast Cancer Cell Migration via the Synergy of Targeted, pH-triggered siRNA Delivery and Chemokine Axis Blockade. Mol Pharm. 2014 Mar 3;11(3):755–65.

You J-O, Guo P, Auguste DT. A drug-delivery vehicle combining the targeting and thermal ablation of HER2+ breast-cancer cells with triggered drug release. Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2013 Apr 8;52(15):4141–6.

Gunawan R, Almeda D, Auguste DT, “Complementary targeting of liposome to IL-1α and TNF-α activated endothelial cells via the transient expression of VCAM1 and E-selectin,” Biomaterials 2011, 32: 9848-9858. (pdf)

You J, Rafat M, and Auguste DT. Crosslinked, heterogeneous colloidosomes exhibit pH-induced morphogenesis. Langmuir 2011; 27(18): 11282-11286; published online, DOI: 10.1021/la202430m. (pdf)

You J, Rafat M, Ye GJC, Auguste DT, “Nanoengineering the heart: Conductive scaffolds enhance connexin 43 expression,” Nano Letters; 2011 Sep 14; 11(9): 3643-8; published online, DOI: 10.1021/nl201514a. (pdf)

You J, Almeda D, Ye GJC, Auguste DT.  Bioresponsive matrices in drug delivery.  Journal of Biological Engineering 2010; 4:15.  (pdf)

Gunawan R, Auguste DT.  Immunoliposomes that target endothelium in vitro are dependent on lipid raft formation.  Molecular Pharmaceutics 2010; 7(5):1569-1575. (pdf)