{"74007":{"#nid":"74007","#data":{"type":"news","title":"New Medical Devices Can Cause New Immune Problems","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EMedical devices are traditionally thought of as fairly simple implants such as stents and hip replacements - pieces of plastic or metal that are placed in the body to handle a very specific function. But biomedical devices now on the drawing board are considerably more sophisticated and represent an unprecedented melding of man and machine.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ECombination products, devices that include a combination of drug, biological and device components, are expected to be the next big thing in biomedical devices. An example of a combination product is a tissue-engineered device that combines living cells with a polymer scaffold. When implanted into a patient, the device can replace or restore damaged tissue or organ function. While the response of the body to each component is well known, considerably less is known about how their new union may affect the body\u0027s reaction to a combination device.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to new research from the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, the body can have a different - and potentially detrimental - reaction when there\u0027s more than one component involved. Findings from the study headed by Dr. Julia Babensee, an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering, were presented Feb. 20 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EWhen a biomedical implant is introduced into a patient\u0027s body, the body\u0027s response is a threat to the acceptance of the implant and could result in device failure. The body responds to biomaterials with an inflammatory reaction and to foreign biological components with an immune reaction. But the two reactions may affect one another when triggered simultaneously, as they would be in a combination device if the combination product contains any foreign biological material.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022If you\u0027re combining a polymer with a biological component, the body may respond differently to that combination than it would to either component by itself. The immune response towards a foreign biological component of the device may be affected by the inflammatory response to the biomaterial component,\u0022 Babensee said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EAccording to Babensee, there is a need to better understand more complex combination products so that as they move into wider use, they can be designed to integrate as smoothly as possible into the patient.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBabensee\u0027s work focuses on strategies for designing biomaterials and devices that can best integrate into the body by controlling host responses. In some combination products, biomaterials (in the form of polymer sponges) are used in the medical device to provide sites for transplanted cells to grow on to help it be better incorporated, strengthening its connection to the body. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EInitial in-vivo research findings indicate that the inflammatory response to a biomaterial can affect the immune response to a foreign protein that is delivered at the same time. The presence of the biomaterial (a polymer) enhanced the body\u0027s immune response to a foreign protein. The polymer boosts the immune response by spurring the dendritic cells (cells that direct immune responses) to mature so that they can effectively initiate an immune response.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe finding means that for combination devices, if there was a potential immune response to a biological component, the biomaterial component could further exacerbate the immune response, making it more difficult for the device to integrate smoothly. \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETo better understand the body\u0027s reaction to biomedical devices that incorporate both biomaterials and biological components, Babensee works with human blood cells, treating them with a variety of biomaterials to see what response is induced from the dendritic cells.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022These cells control which way the immune response will go, so if we can control their phenotype, the idea is that we can control immune responses,\u0022 Babensee said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EBut there are ways around triggering a response. Babensee\u0027s research has determined that immature dendritic cells don\u0027t cause an immune response, making them a good option for biomaterials used in combination biomedical devices.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Eventually, this may be a way to integrate the control of immune responses towards a biomedical device through a biomaterial,\u0022 Babensee said.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EDifferent materials seem to have varying effects on the dendritic cells. This may indicate which biomaterials will be good for which application. For example, biomaterials that support dendritic cell maturation may be best suited as polymeric carriers for vaccine delivery and those that do not support dendritic cell maturation may be used as sponges in tissue engineering.  \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022It seems that there may be a way to control the immune response to a biological component through the use of different biomaterials,\u0022 Babensee said. \u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":[{"value":"Research findings could help with design of combination products that are not compromised by adverse host responses"}],"field_summary":[{"value":"New combination medical devices that use biological components and biomaterials or drugs can cause a different - and potentially detrimental - reaction in the body, according to new research from Georgia Tech and Emory University.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Research finds combo device problems, solutions"}],"uid":"27281","created_gmt":"2005-02-23 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:30","author":"Lisa Grovenstein","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2005-02-23T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2005-02-23T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"74008":{"id":"74008","type":"image","title":"Julia Babensee","body":null,"created":"1449178037","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:27:17","changed":"1475894683","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:43"}},"media_ids":["74008"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cstrong\u003ELisa Grovenstein\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ECommunications \u0026amp; Marketing\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.gatech.edu\/contact\/index.html?id=lgrovenste3\u0022\u003EContact Lisa Grovenstein\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003E404-894-8835\u003C\/strong\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["lisa.grovenstein@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}