Joey Federico has always straddled the line between science and engineering. Both areas fascinate him, but as he considered a PhD, it was important for him to know what he didn't want to do.
He didn't want an overly technical engineering degree, nor did he want to study an overly niche scientific discipline.
"I didn't want to understand how a very basic function of biology works," Federico said. "I wanted to have my work be very scientific, but also translational."
To find that mix, Federico looked to the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME). He recently completed his fourth year pursuing a PhD studying Immunoengineering in the Riesenfeld Group.
UChicago PME's mission to integrate science and engineering to address global challenges from the molecular level spoke to Federico. He was convinced the school was the right program for him while participating in an admitted students event.
At the time, he was a senior associate research scientist at Bristol Myers Squibb.
"I didn't want to understand how a very basic function of biology works," he said. "We have clinical data showing that certain drugs we thought scientifically would work in the clinic ended up not working. I wanted to ask the question, 'how can we take those insights, learn from them, and ultimately do work that will translate back to the clinic? I was clearly told that was the goal of UChicago PME."
Federico's current research looks at the development of autoimmune diseases, such as celiac disease, Type 1 diabetes, and rheumatoid arthritis. His particular interest is the role the cytokine, IL-15, plays in the progression of these diseases from an inactive state to full-blown, symptomatic autoimmunity — and how these insights can be translated into potential therapeutic interventions for patients.
"The concept is that I want to take information that we know from clinical data, study it scientifically to understand how it fits into existing disease paradigms, and then turn it around and generate new therapies based off of that," he said. "We study celiac disease. We know that IL-15 is sufficient to enable an immune response, but blocking it clinically in the context of celiac disease did not work. Therefore, if we know that it's sufficient, but it is not required, it suggests that there are other molecules that can compensate for it and that we need to change our strategy when we think about therapeutic interventions."
Federico is interested in studying what the cytokine does to T cells that mediate tissue destruction. His goal is to understand the underlying mechanism by which the cells are activated in diseased states and find alternative strategies to blocking their activation to treat disease.
"At its heart, I'm taking data — clinical data that we have — and trying to rationalize that from a scientific perspective," he said. "It's what we call bedside to bench and back to bedside so we can generate new ideas for novel potential therapeutics."
—Learn more about the PhD programs at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering