Eric Bachelder is working on two very different diseases with one shared challenge: how to get treatment to the right place in the body while limiting harm everywhere else.

In the past few months, Bachelder — an associate professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy’s division of pharmacoengineering and molecular pharmaceutics — has received two major grants from the National Institutes of Health. The grants will advance potential new treatments for two diseases: glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, and multiple sclerosis, a life-altering autoimmune disease that affects the brain and spinal cord.

Together, the projects reflect a central focus of Bachelder’s work. He designs tiny, biodegradable materials that change how medical therapies move through the body and interact with the immune system.

“These diseases are life threatening and severely debilitating,” he says. “Drug delivery is a unique method to not only enhance potential new treatments but also decrease side effects.”

For glioblastoma, the need for innovative approaches is especially urgent.

The aggressive brain cancer almost always returns after treatment. Even with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, most patients survive less than a year after diagnosis.

Bachelder recently received a five-year, $2.7 million NIH grant to develop a biodegradable implant that can be placed directly into the space left behind when a brain tumor is removed. The implant is designed to slowly release molecules that activate the immune system at the site where the tumor is most likely to return.

Instead of sending an immune-activating drug throughout the whole body, where it can cause harsh side effects, the implant would deliver therapy locally, where remaining cancer cells tend to hide. The approach is intended to work in tandem with the surgery patients already receive.

The research team is using a novel polymer that is engineered to break down in the body at a controlled rate. By manufacturing it in the form of extremely thin fibers, the team hopes the implant will release immunity-activating molecules gradually without harming the brain.

Bachelder’s second NIH-funded project focuses on multiple sclerosis, a chronic disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks the central nervous system.

Current MS treatments can help control disease activity, but they may not work for everyone and can suppress the immune system more broadly than intended.

His team is exploring a more targeted strategy, which features tiny biodegradable particles designed to interact with specific immune cells and encourage a more calming, regulatory immune response.

Early studies in mice suggest that, when given through the bloodstream, the particles attach to particular immune cells and help reduce harmful inflammation. In models of MS-like disease, treatment with the particles has been associated with substantial improvement in severe symptoms.

“A traditional vaccine educates the immune system to attack a certain protein. Our treatment is the opposite of that,” Bachelder explains. “It is an inverse vaccine, and we design it to educate the immune system not to attack a specific protein — similar to how allergy shots work.”

The project will investigate which particle features make the approach most effective, how immune cells recognize the particles and whether the strategy works across multiple models of MS-like disease.

While the two projects focus on different diseases, both ask how engineered materials can make treatment more precise.

For patients, that precision could matter enormously. A follow-on therapy that slots naturally into existing cancer surgery or an MS treatment that helps restore immune balance without weakening the body’s defenses overall, would significantly improve quality of life as well as medical outcomes.