Host response to biomaterials

The course is composed of lectures (incl expert guest lectures), during which the required background knowledge is addressed, in combination with a ‘startup-challenge’ based on clinical cases. For the startup challenge, the student is challenged to identify a promising innovation in the field of immunomodulatory biomaterials for a specific clinical case (based on scientific literature). The selected innovation is pitched as a potential new treatment option, for which the various aspects regarding the bench-to-bedside translation need to be considered. The startup challenge is performed either individually or in small groups (2-3 students), depending on the number of participating students.

The lectures revolve around the following four modules:

• The foreign body response to a biomaterial:Introduction into relevant concepts (biocompatibility, foreign body response); various types of biomaterials (synthetic vs biological, bioresorbable vs non-degradable); inflammation and regeneration; the initial host response (haemostasis, provisional matrix formation, innate immune response).
• Focusing on the cellular players:The role of macrophages; macrophage polarization, foreign body giant cells, fibrous encapsulation; the role of dendritic cells and adaptive immune cells in the foreign body response.
• Immunomodulatory biomaterials and their application in regenerative medicine.
• Clinical translation: patient-specific factors that influence the host response; predicting the host response to a biomaterial (in vitro models, inter-species variations

For Student Mobility Alliance students: This course requires advanced knowledge of cell biology and basic knowledge of immunology. The course will be delivered on campus. The final exam is a written exam on campus.

After passing the course, the student has insight in:

• The facts and concepts of wound healing and the foreign body response at the molecular and cellular level and can reproduce and explain these.
• The various cell types that play a role in the above-mentioned processes and can identify these cells and reproduce their interdependent functions.
• The relevant structural, chemical and mechanical properties of a biomaterial and can describe how these properties affect the foreign body response.
• Various applications of immunomodulatory biomaterials for regenerative medicine and immune therapies, and can integrate and apply the above-mentioned principles related to the foreign body response for a state-of-the-art clinical case study.
• Relevant inter-patient and inter-species variabilities regarding the immune system and can reason and explain to what extent these variabilities are of importance for the clinical application of immunomodulatory biomaterials

You must meet the following requirements

• Completed none of the course modules listed below
• Host response to biomaterials (8WC10)

https://tue.osiris-student.nl/onderwijscatalogus/extern/cursus?cursusid=1640416&taal=nl