Tailored biomaterials for T cell-directed applications.

Abstract

As the complexity of biotechnology increases, the ability to control the interaction between cells and biomaterials is garnering the interest of an increasing audience. Cells contact artificial surfaces in a broad range of essential applications including medical implants and in vitro cell culture, to name a few. The projects in this thesis focused on creating and engineering three different biomaterials to interact with a model cell, the thymus lymphocyte (T cell), in a controllable manner. The first data chapter illustrates the fabrication and subsequent testing of a nanoparticle-protein conjugate with the ultimate goal of better understanding the binding interaction of the T cell receptor and its cognate ligand. The second chapter involves the creation of micropatterned, antigen-presenting cells that were meant to act as a biomaterials-based vaccine by interacting with and activating T cells. Finally, the fourth chapter describes a novel chemically degradable hydrogel system and the proof-of-concept experiments performed to encapsulate T cells. Interestingly, each of these projects features biomaterials that are representative of different size-regimes - nano, micro, and macro(millimeter). While the materials are different in size, they share the common goal of controllably interacting with T cells and use some of the same basic concepts and methods to reach this goal.