Debra T. Auguste

Debra Auguste is an American chemical engineer and professor at Northeastern University in the department of chemical engineering. Auguste is dedicated to developing treatments for triple negative breast cancer, one of the most aggressive and fatal cancers that disproportionately affects African American women. Her lab characterizes biomarkers of triple negative breast cancer and develops novel biocompatible therapeutic technologies to target and destroy metastatic cancer cells. Auguste received the 2012 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers and in 2010 was named in the 50 Most Influential African-Americans in Technology. In 2020, Auguste became an Elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.

Early life and education Auguste pursued her undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995. She majored in chemical engineering and graduated in 1999 with her Bachelor of Science. She studied under the mentorship of Robert K. Prud'homme, where she designed and tested novel liposome structures for potential use in drug delivery platforms. She worked on creating hydrophobically-modified polyethylene glycol (PEG) polymers that can evade complement binding, an immune molecule that tags pathogens for immune system clearance and destruction. After completing her master's in 2004, Auguste further optimized the design of drug delivery liposomes with PEG protective layers so that they could be enabled to lose their protective layer once inside the cell to fuse with the endosome and release contents into the cell. She was able to design liposomes that conjugate PEG and maintain them at pH levels similar to blood, and then dissociate them once they arrive at pH levels below 7.4. She built the liposomes based on her previous work using pH-dependent liposomes with the PEG coating to prevent immune opsonization, but with the added ability to deliver siRNA to the endosome of the cell. Auguste completed her postdoctoral training in 2006. As the principal investigator of the Auguste Lab, Auguste's research program focused on developing novel biomaterials for drug delivery systems through studying mechanisms of cell development and exploring how these mechanisms are perturbed by environmental signals. At this time she discovered a staggering statistic that changed the course of her research program. She worked in the Grove School of Engineering where her lab continued to focus on the discovery molecular targets for triple negative breast cancer as well as novel therapies to inhibit breast cancer metastasis. Her lab continues to focus on developing novel biocompatible drug delivery platforms, with an emphasis on drugs for treatment of triple negative breast cancer. Triple negative breast cancer is the most common cancer affecting African American women and it also remains the most difficult to test and treat due to the lack biomarkers. Their work was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. The complementary targeting of specific ligand ratios was enabled with a dual complementary liposome that specifically binds the ratio of EGFR and ICAM-1 on tumor cells. Due to the efficacy and promising potential of this technology, Auguste and her colleagues filed a patent for these cancer targeting liposomes in 2018.

Auguste, along with her colleagues at Boston Children's Hospital, has also pioneered a novel gene editing approach to treating TNBC. The developed a tumor-targeted nanolipogel system which targets tumors and enables CRISPR mediated knockout of Lipocalin2, a known breast cancer oncogene. This article was also published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2020: Named in the Top 100 Inspiring Black scientists in America by CellPress 2018: Elected to the board of directors of the Biomedical Engineering Society 2018: Elected Fellow of the Biomedical Engineering Society 2012: Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) in the Department of Health and Human Services 2012: National Institutes of Health Director's New Innovator Award 2011: National Science Foundation CAREER Award in the Biomaterials Program 2010: Named 50 Most Influential African-Americans in Technology 2009: Young Faculty Award from DARPA 2008: Percy Julien Award for Outstanding Scientist of the Year 2007: Office of Naval Research Young Investigator Program Award