Immunoengineering has arrived

• Published in: Journal of biomedical materials research. Part A Vol. 109; no. 4; pp. 397 - 403
• Main Author: Green, Jordan J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken, USA John Wiley & Sons, Inc 01.04.2021; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Animals; Autoimmune diseases; Autoimmune Diseases - immunology; Autoimmune Diseases - therapy; Biocompatible Materials - chemistry; Biocompatible Materials - therapeutic use; Bioengineering - methods; biomaterials; biomedical engineering; Diabetes mellitus (insulin dependent); Drug delivery; Drug Discovery; Education; Humans; Immune system; immunoengineering; immunology; Immunomodulating Agents - chemistry; Immunomodulating Agents - therapeutic use; Immunomodulation; Infectious diseases; Medical equipment; Medical innovations; Tissue engineering; education; biomaterials; immunoengineering; immunology; biomedical engineering
• ISSN: 1549-3296; 1552-4965
• DOI: 10.1002/jbm.a.37041

Immunoengineering is a new discipline that creates and applies engineering tools and principles to investigate and modulate the immune system. It spans from the molecular scale to the scale of populations and is critically important in both health and disease. This perspective discusses the rapid development of immunoengineering as a field, including advances to research and education. On the research side, immunoengineering is poised to revolutionize technologies for tissue engineering, drug delivery, and medical devices, among others. Immunoengineering is shown to unlock new tools for biomedical discovery and innovation and has the potential to safely and effectively treat myriad diseases, from cancer to infectious diseases to type 1 diabetes and autoimmune diseases in novel ways. On the educational side, it is described how immunoengineering centers and educational focus areas are being created at leading universities. Furthermore, data are presented to show how grant agencies are making major investments into the field and high‐impact research and translational biotechnologies are being developed.