New Jersey Center for Biomaterials

This collaboration with Dr Julia Babensee of Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University will investigate the bioresponse to polymers developed in Core S of dendritic cells (DC). Biomaterials are shown to act as an adjuvant in the enhancement of the adaptive immune response to co-delivered antigen when biomaterials are used with biological materials in a therapeutic application. Biomaterials are considered as agonists for DC maturation and there are several mechanisms by which DCs recognize and respond to biomaterials. The goal of this collaboration is to design biomaterials to control DC phenotype and in this way control immune responses to combination products (1). Core S is developing the technology to prepare polymer surfaces of several polymer libraries that have been designed and synthesized at the New Jersey Center for Biomaterials. The technology will enable the Babensee team to evaluate the polymers’ effects on DCs in a high-throughput manner using the assays developed in their group.

1. Julia E. Babensee., “Interaction of dendritic cells with biomaterials”, Seminars in Immunology 20 (2008) 101–108