WEHI New Medicines and Diagnostics Special Seminar hosted by Professor Guillaume Lessene

Professor Pol Besenius

Department of Chemistry, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany

Modular Supramolecular Hydrogels for ECM Mimicry and Antitumor Vaccination 

L7W Seminar Room

Join via TEAMS

Including Q&A session

Supramolecular chemistry offers a powerful platform for the design of multifunctional biomaterials that mimic the complexity of biological systems. In this lecture, I will present our recent efforts to engineer two distinct, yet conceptually unified, supramolecular hydrogel systems aimed at addressing key biomedical challenges: dynamic extracellular matrix (ECM) mimicry for 3D cell culture and fully synthetic antitumor vaccines for immunotherapy. The lecture will focus on a two-component supramolecular hydrogel composed of dendritic peptide amphiphiles with distinct thermoresponsive ethylene glycol-based solubilizing units (Fig. 1). Through combined spectroscopic and microscopic techniques, we demonstrate how these materials form stable nanofibrous networks with slow monomer exchange, while maintaining rapid stress relaxation—an essential feature for supporting cellular migration and growth. DRG neuron cultures in microfluidic chambers revealed that both matrix stiffness and chemical functionalization can modulate neurite outgrowth, underscoring the hydrogel’s potential as an ECM surrogate in 3D tissue models. In parallel, we developed an injectable antitumor vaccine based on a complementary supramolecular hydrogel platform. Key immunogenic components, including a clinically relevant tumor associated mucin 1 (taMUC1) B cell epitope was conjugated to a supramolecular carrier and integrated into the injectable hydrogel matrix. In vivo studies demonstrate that both adjuvant and epitope dosing critically influenced the immune response, emphasizing the modularity and efficiency of the supramolecular system. Together, these studies highlight how supramolecular engineering enables precise control over both mechanical and immunological cues, paving the way for next-generation materials in regenerative medicine and cancer immunotherapy. 

Pol Besenius was born and raised in Luxemburg and studied Chemistry in Vienna and Glasgow. He received his PhD from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (2008) and undertook postdoctoral studies at the Eindhoven University of Technology, as a Marie-Curie Fellow (2008-2011). He started his independent research group at the Organic Chemistry Institute at the University of Münster supported by a Liebig Fellowship in 2011 and moved to the Johannes-Gutenberg University of Mainz in 2015 to take up a W2-Professorship of Macromolecular Chemistry. In 2022 he was promoted to W3-Professor of Macromolecular Chemistry and Supramolecular Biomaterials at the Department of Chemistry. He was awarded an ERC Consolidator Grant (2019), a visiting Faculty Program Fellowship at the Weizmann Institute of Science (2020), and the Forcheur Jean-Marie Lehn Prize (2022). He is currently coordinator of the DAAD funded International Study and Training Partnership (ISAP) with Kyushu University, Fukuoka, and spokesperson of the DFG funded Research Training Group (GRK 2516) "Structure Formation of Soft Matter at Interfaces". 

All welcome!