Immunomodulatory Biomaterials

Dr. Badylak is Professor in the Departments of Surgery and BioEngineering at the University of Pittsburgh and Deputy Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, Pittsburgh, PA, USA. The focus of Dr. Badylak's work has been the mechanisms by which extracellular matrix signals host tissues to promote and support functional tissue reconstruction. Dr. Elisseeff began her career at Carnegie Mellon University and Harvard-MIT. After this, she was a Fellow at the National Institute of General Medical Sciences Pharmacology Research Associate Program, and later became an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. In 2004, Elisseeff cofounded Cartilix, Inc., a startup that translated adhesive and biomaterial technologies for treating orthopedic disease, acquired by Biomet Inc in 2009.In 2009, she also founded Aegeria Soft Tissue and Tissue Repair, new startups focused on soft tissue regeneration and wound healing. Dr. Elisseeff serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards of Bausch and Lomb, Kythera Biopharmaceutical, and Cellular Bioengineering Inc. She has received the Carnegie Mellon Young Alumni Award, Arthritis Investigator Award from the Arthritis Foundation, Yasuda Award from the Society of Physical Regulation in Medicine and Biology and was named by Technology Review magazine as a top innovator under 35 in 2002 and top 10 technologies to change the future. In 2008, Dr. Elisseeff was elected a fellow in the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and a Young Global Leader in the World Economic Forum. She has published over 120 articles, book chapters and patent applications and given over 130 national and international invited lectures.

1. Engineering physical biomaterial properties to manipulate macrophages phenotype: From bench to bedside 2. Early factors in the immune response to biomaterials 3. Nanotechnology and biomaterials for immune modulation and monitoring 4. Immune-instructive materials and surfaces for medical applications 5. Electrospun tissue regeneration biomaterials and immunomodulation 6. Biomaterials and immunomodulation for spinal cord repair 7. Biomaterial strategies to treat autoimmunity and unwanted immune responses to anti-drug antibodies and transplanted tissues 8. Lipids as regulators of inflammation and tissue regeneration 9. Biomaterials modulation of the tumor immune environment for cancer immunotherapy 10. Circumventing immune rejection and foreign body response to therapeutics of type 1 diabetes 11. Machine learning and mechanistic computational modeling of inflammation as tools for designing immunomodulatory biomaterials