Bioinspired Engineering News Today

CAR-T cell therapies are transforming the treatment of previously incurable blood cancers, but a large proportion of patients still responds only poorly or not at all to them, calling for new strategies to overcome this challenge. Now, a research team has developed a simple intervention in the form of a biodegradable scaffold material called T-cell enhancing scaffolds (TES) that can be locally injected under the skin and used to restimulate CAR-T cells after their administration. This increased ...

For the first time, researchers from the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), and Genentech<u>, a member of the Roche Group,</u> found a way to enhance and extend LN expansion, and study how this phenomenon affects both the immune system and efficacy of vaccinations against tumors. While the oversized LNs maintained a normal ti...

Each one of us has around 600 lymph nodes (LNs) – small, bean-shaped organs that house various types of blood cells and filter lymph fluid – scattered throughout our bodies.

<p>Hydrogels are already used in clinical practice for the delivery of drugs, and as lenses, bone cement, wound dressings, 3D scaffolds in tissue engineering and other applications. However, bonding different hydrogel polymers to one another has remained a challenge; yet it could enable numerous new applications. Now, Harvard Wyss and SEAS researchers pioneered a new method that uses a thin film of chitosan, a fibrous sugar-based material derived from the processed outer skeletons of shell...

<p>We all know someone who's had a head injury that was "only" a concussion, but even mild traumatic brain injuries can cause lasting damage, and the vast majority are never diagnosed. A team led by Samir Mitragotri at the Wyss Institute, Harvard SEAS, and Boston Children's Hospital created a way to diagnose mild TBIs (mTBIs) even when MRI scans showed nothing, using the body's own immune cells called macrophages. They attached micropartic...

Scientists have created a new treatment for traumatic brain injury (TBI) that shrank brain lesions by 56% and significantly reduced local inflammation levels in pigs.

<p>Traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) can cause lasting damage, but stopping the rampant brain inflammation they cause is difficult. A team at the Wyss, @SEAS and @MGH led by Samir Mitragotri has made a new treatment using macrophages - immune cells that migrate to the brain. By attaching microparticle "backpacks" that kept the macrophages in a healing state, they reduced the size of brain lesions by 56% in pigs with a mock TBI.</p>

<p>We all know someone who's had a head injury that was "only" a concussion, but even mild traumatic brain injuries can cause lasting damage, and the vast majority are never diagnosed. A team led by Samir Mitragotri at the Wyss Institute, Harvard SEAS, and Boston Children's Hospital created a way to diagnose mild TBIs (mTBIs) even when MRI scans showed nothing, using the body's own immune cells called macrophages. They attached micropartic...

Wars, drought, displacement, and instability are causing a dramatic increase in the number of pregnant and breastfeeding women around the world who suffer from malnutrition.

Human life-like in vitro model of radiation damage sustained to the lung opens an unprecedented window into the early disease process, and opportunities for drug development