Camila Vasquez Vidal

Camila Vasquez Vidal

Biography

Camila Vásquez Vidal is a rising junior majoring in Cellular Molecular Biology at the
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras. Born in San Salvador, El Salvador, she moved to Puerto
Rico in 2018 due to the country’s instability. Her resilience, curiosity, and family values shaped
her interest in art, science, and the belief that education is both a privilege and a responsibility.
She published an institutional manuscript on circular migration and type 2 diabetes management
during her sophomore year. Through MSRP 2025, she worked in the Hammond Lab on layered
lipid nanoparticles for targeted mRNA delivery in cancer models, and later studied hostmicrobiome
interactions and the gut-brain axis in Drosophila at UPR’s IRF lab. Returning this
year, she engineered a phosphorylated peptide LNP delivery system to improve MHC I antigen
presentation and T cell recognition in glioblastoma. Her interests focus on microbiology,
diet-induced physiology, therapeutic delivery, and public health disparities.

Lipid Nanoparticle-Mediated Delivery of Phosphorylated Peptides for
Immunotherapeutic Applications in Glioblastoma Multiforme
Camila S. Vasquez-Vidal1, Aram Shajii2, Alexander Stoneman3, and Paula T. Hammond3
1Department of Biology, University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras
2Department of Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
3Department of Chemical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most aggressive primary brain tumor in adults, with
median survival of approximately 15 months despite multimodal treatment (Thakkar et al.,
2014; Davis, 2016). A central driver of therapeutic failure is the tumor’s ability to evade
immune surveillance by downregulating MHC class I expression, limiting CD8+ T cell
recognition (Burster et al., 2021). Abnormal kinase activity in GBM generates
phosphopeptides that are presented by MHC class I molecules as markers of transformed cells.
Despite their demonstrated immunogenicity in hematologic malignancies, these antigens
remain largely unexplored (Mohammed et al., 2008; Cobbold et al., 2013). However, the
absence of a viable intracellular delivery framework has prevented translation of this approach
to solid tumors. Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) offer a clinically validated delivery platform
(Tenchov et al., 2021), yet their application to phosphopeptide-directed immunotherapy
remains unexplored. Here, we optimized LNP formulations for phosphopeptide delivery by
varying ionizable lipid identity and N/P ratios, validated cellular uptake using Cy5-conjugated
peptides, and assessed functional endosomal escape through a PLK-1 targeting cell viability
assay. This work establishes a foundational framework connecting GBM-specific
phosphorylation abnormalities to immune-based therapeutic development.