About Us
The Johns Hopkins Center for Translational ImmunoEngineering, JH-TIE, is a member of the National Centers for Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NCBIB) network, which is supported by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. We focus on developing tools and methods that will catalyze advances in cellular engineering technologies to modulate the immune system in an antigen-specific fashion with broad applications to human health.
Immunoengineering has the potential to profoundly impact fundamental bioscience, translational research, and human health. Research in ommunology and immunoengineering has created exciting scientific advances that will revolutionize many fields including cancer, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and immunetolerance, among others. These advances will lead directly to new treatments and enhance the efficacy of existing and emerging therapeutics and devices.
Despite this potential, immunoengineering remains a nascent field. Significant knowledge gaps, inadequate technology, and barriers in practice prevent these advances from realizing their potential. For example, in adoptive immunotherapy – currently one of the most promising therapeutic avenues – it can take up to 6-10 weeks to expand T cell populations to sufficient numbers for therapeutic use. The prolonged ex vivo T cell manipulation, high costs, and challenging quality control for cell production hinder the wider range of clinical use of adoptive cellular immunotherapy. Other bioengineering challenges include methods for effectively stimulating engineered T cells, such as CAR- T cells, with targets of interest, optimizing the safety and efficacy of engineered T cells, and overcoming host counter measures that hinder the use of immunotherapy.
In addition to these technological barriers, fundamental differences in nomenclature, practice, and communication channels stand between engineers, immunologists, and other partners who could collaborate and innovate. The situation has limited the creation and adoption of bioengineered technologies and the translational research and development opportunities that these resources could enable.
Our goal is to interface with bioengineers, immunologists, material scientists, and biomedical researchers to develop tools, techniques, and protocols that are broadly relevant to immune and inflammatory diseases, engage in new collaborations, provide training for graduate and post-graduate investigators; and maximize the potential of immunoengineering and immune-based therapies.