Faculty Fanfare: Olivia Lanier

UNM engineering professor explores ways to tailor medicine delivery based on biology

An assistant professor in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at UNM is studying how biological differences affect the efficacy of medicines including cancer treatment.

The work by Olivia Lanier is funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health and could lead to a better understanding of the role of sex hormones and immune responses, among other things.

“Women’s health has historically been under-researched, and this has serious consequences,” Lanier said. “For example, drugs are 3.5 times more likely to be pulled from the market due to safety issues in women, and 7 percent of new drug applications report at least a 40 percent difference in pharmacokinetics between males and females. This is because historically, drugs have only been tested in men,” she said. 

As part of the NIH grant known as R35, Lanier will work with a group of graduate and post-doc students. Lanier, who applied for the $1.8 million, 5-year grant shortly after arriving at UNM in fall of 2024, said the work focuses on two areas.

The first is understanding sex-based differences in how nanomedicines are delivered and processed in the body. Nanomedicine uses drugs or gene therapies loaded onto nanoparticles for targeted and more effective delivery. 

Looking at biological differences is key to improving drugs for women in particular, she said. 

“In this work, we’ll study how sex hormones, immune responses, and life stages,  like the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, and menopause, affect nanoparticle biodistribution, immune clearance, and protein corona formation. We’ll collect human blood and vaginal mucus samples, analyze delivery pathways in animal models, and identify key mechanisms that drive differences between males and females. Once we understand these mechanisms, we can re-engineer nanoparticles for sex-specific applications.”

Lanier said that with more knowledge, modifications could be made, for example, to avoid unwanted hormone binding, or to optimize treatments around the menstrual cycle phases when drug delivery to reproductive organs is most effective.

Creating biologically-specific treatments plans is far from the norm, although Lanier hopes to change that.

“Out of 350,000 nanoparticle studies on PubMed, only 0.03 percent have examined sex differences,” she said.

The second part of the work explores vaginal drug delivery systems, which Lanier called “hugely underutilized but promising route for nanomedicine.”

“Despite advantages like easy access, minimized immune activation, and the ability to target reproductive organs directly, only 0.08 percent of nanoparticle studies have investigated this route. We’re developing innovative delivery platforms, such as thermo- and enzyme-responsive hydrogels and biodegradable polymer discs, that can release nanoparticles locally or enable systemic delivery through the vaginal blood supply. This approach has the potential to transform treatments for conditions that disproportionately affect women, from reproductive cancers to fibroids and beyond.”

The research could help individual patients – as well as a larger collective.

“Ultimately, the goal of this grant is to close critical gaps in women’s health by making nanomedicine more precise, effective, and inclusive,” said Lanier, who is also an affiliate faculty member in Cell Biology and Physiology and a member of the Cancer Therapeutics Program at the UNM Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Lanier said she’s had great support from colleagues across UNM for her proposed work, including Mara Steinkamp in the Department of Pathology; Sarah Adams of the Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; Gabriel López, Achraf Noureddine, Andrew Shreve, and C. Jeffrey Brinker of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Lanier also said she appreciates the encouragement from Engineering Dean Donna Riley, who has championed the Engineering Health Equity Initiative. The project aims to combine engineering innovation with healthcare in order to reduce disparities in underserved populations. 

“My research on women’s health and sex-based differences in nanomedicine aligns closely with this vision, and my R35 award supports that mission by developing drug delivery systems designed to better account for biological differences and improve treatment outcomes,” Lanier said.

This fall, Lanier also will teach a new course at UNM, Health Equity for Engineering.

“I originally developed this course as a postdoctoral fellow at UT Austin as the first health equity class in the country focused on engineering design principles, and I’m thrilled to bring it here to inspire the next generation of engineers to think critically about inclusivity, innovation, and impact.”