Macrophage-hitchhiking Anisotropic Microparticles for Therapeutic and Diagnostic Applications
Name
Wang-Liwen-phd-HST-2023-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
14.88 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
db95ad3d74ee6725ced34a293f4c317a
Author(s)
Wang, Li-Wen
Advisor(s)
Mitragotri, Samir
Date Issued
February 2023
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Cell therapies represent a major paradigm shift of biotechnology in medicine due to its transformative potential in treating previously incurable diseases. A variety of cells have been applied for cell therapies, including stem cells, tissue-specific cells, and hematopoietic cells. Particularly, immune cells, a subset of blood cells, have gained significant attention owing to their inflammation-homing ability as well as inherently critical roles in disease progression and tissue regeneration. The prosperity of immune cell-based therapies in the clinic has fueled the efforts in immune cell engineering. Several approaches have been taken to functionalize immune cells, among which biomaterial-assisted cellular platforms, marrying the strengths of biomaterials and leukocytes, become a new pillar of immune cell engineering. In my thesis work, I provide a brief overview on the cell therapies in the clinic, followed by introducing two projects of biomaterial-assisted cellular platforms, where anisotropic microparticles and macrophage, a type of innate immune cells, were employed. Specifically, I developed and engineered discoidal microparticles that can hitchhike on the macrophage surface but resist phagocytosis due to their anisotropic morphology. This approach takes advantage of inflammation-homing capability of macrophages and enables stable loading of therapeutic and imaging agents in the extracellular space for therapeutic and diagnostic applications.
MIT Department
Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology
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