All are welcome, (attendance required for graduate students). Lunch is provided.

Lessons from translation and the development of regenerative immunotherapies

The immune system is the first responder to trauma and foreign bodies such as
biomaterials, yet this response and its capacity to orchestrate tissue repair has been
largely ignored. Today, biomaterials can be engineered with exquisite control over
physical properties and can present an array of spatially controlled biological cues. Until
now, these scaffolds have directly targeted stem cells, vascular development, and
differentiated cells to stimulate tissue formation or wound healing. Translating tissue
engineering technologies to the clinic, we discovered cells from adaptive immune
system responded to the biomaterials. We profiled in depth the immunological response
to the wound environment in combination with biological scaffolds. The adaptive
immune system, specifically Th2 T cells, is required for the scaffold stimulation of
wound repair. We are now investigating in detail the innate and adaptive immune
response to synthetic and biological scaffolds. In parallel, we are exploiting these
discoveries to design immunomodulatory materials for tissue repair. Ultimately,
targeting the immune system represents a paradigm shift for the field and will help to
realize the promise of regenerative medicine.