Eric Appel

Eric A. Appel, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Material Science & Engineering, Stanford University School of Engineering; Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Department of Bioengineering, Stanford University School of Engineering; Assistant Professor (by courtesy), Department of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology, Stanford University School of Medicine; Center Fellow (by courtesy), the Woods Institute for the Environment; Faculty Fellow, ChEM-H Institute

Research description: The Appel lab at Stanford integrates concepts and approaches from supramolecular chemistry and natural/synthetic materials to tackle healthcare challenges of critical importance to society, including diabetes mellitus. They have developed a platform of materials with unique, tunable properties that they are exploiting as the basis for novel treatment strategies for a range of disease targets. Relevant to diabetes, Appel’s group has developed polymer excipient technology affording unprecedented stabilization of monomeric insulin, a strategy that forms the basis of novel ultra-fast-acting insulin formulations for treatment of diabetes. They have also developed a polymer excipient platform to develop a stable co-formulation of insulin and amylin analogues as a dual-hormone therapy for treatment of diabetes. They have several on-going collaborations with multiple members of SDRC that focus on the translation of their new material technologies.

Selected relevant publications (SDRC Members in BOLD):

  1. Maikawa CL, Smith AAA, Zou L, Roth GA, Gale EC, Stapleton LM, Baker SW, Mann JL, Yu AC, Correa S, Grosskopf AK, Liong CS, Meis CM, Chan D, Troxell M, Maahs DM, Buckingham BA, Webber MJ, Appel EA. A co-formulation of supramolecularly stabilized insulin and pramlintide enhances mealtime glucagon suppression in diabetic pigs. Nat Biomed Eng. 2020 May;4(5):507-517. doi: 10.1038/s41551-020-0555-4. PMID: 32393892; PMCID: PMC7274092.

  2. Smith AAA, Maikawa CL, Roth GA, Appel EA. Site-selective modification of proteins using cucurbit[7]uril as supramolecular protection for N-terminal aromatic amino acids. Org Biomol Chem. 2020 May 27. doi: 10.1039/d0ob01004a. PMID: 32459261.

  3. Maikawa CL, Smith AAA, Zou L, Meis CM, Mann JL, Webber MJ, Appel EA. Stable Monomeric Insulin Formulations Enabled by Supramolecular PEGylation of Insulin Analogues. Adv Ther (Weinh). 2020 Jan;3(1):1900094. doi: 10.1002/adtp.201900094. PMID: 32190729; PMCID: PMC7079736.

  4. Mann JL, Maikawa CL, Smith AAA, Grosskopf AK, Baker SW, Roth GA, Meis CM, Gale EC, Liong CS, Correa S, Chan D, Stapleton LM, Yu AC, Muir B, Howard S, Postma A, Appel EA. An ultrafast insulin formulation enabled by high-throughput screening of engineered polymeric excipients. Sci Transl Med. 2020 Jul 1;12(550):eaba6676. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aba6676. PMID: 32611683; PMCID: PMC7716884.

  5. Maikawa CL, d’Aquino AI, Lal RA, Buckingham BA, Appel EA. Engineering biopharmaceutical formulations to improve diabetes management. Sci Transl Med. 2021 Jan; 13(578):eabd6726. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abd6726. PMID: 33504649.