Immunoengineering
Immunoengineering is an interdisciplinary area that integrates engineering tools and principles with those of immunology to harnesses the power of the immune system. Immunoengineering research at Georgia Tech BME aims to unravel the immune system function and regulation in health and disease through a quantitative study of the immune cells and tissues and the design of new therapeutic strategies. We aim to develop breakthrough engineering tools and methods for personalized and predictive health care in patients.
Immunoengineering research in BME interfaces with the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech as well as partner centers at Emory University, Center for Disease Control, Children’s Hospital of Atlanta, and the NSF cell manufacturing center, Atlanta Center for Microsystems Engineered Point-of-Care Technologies, along with others. Our students and faculty are pioneering immunoengineering approaches in a broad range of scientific directions including cancer, infectious diseases, regenerative medicine, wound healing, inflammatory diseases, microbiome, and autoimmunity. Key research areas include:
- Development of vaccines and immunotherapies
- Engineering T and B cell therapies
- Immune cell manufacturing
- Emergent rapid diagnostics, bioelectronic devices, and point-of-care technologies
- Mechanobiology of the immune cells and immune receptors
- Application of systems immunology, computational, and mathematical modeling to decipher host-immune interactions
- Development of immunomodulatory biomaterials and therapies to manipulate the immune environment
- Multiscale engineering of the immune system using materials, gene editing, synthetic biology, and immunodelivery tools
- Development of single-cell analysis and multi-omics tools
- Engineering multi-modal imaging tools and image-guided therapies
Latest News on Immunoengineering research
Philip Santangelo wants to build a toolbox of mRNA drugs to activate or shut off specific genes to help the immune system fight cancer and other disorders.
BME researcher plans to engineer immune cells to become lifelong cancer sentinels
‘Species agnostic’ screening is the latest result of a powerful partnership between James Dahlman and Phil Santangelo
Cheng Zhu leads study of immune system protein that helps control T cell activity
Primary Faculty