Host Response to Biomaterials

Course goals

After fulfilling this profile, the student is able to address an unmet societal need and to provide a feasible and sustainable solution by building bridges towards relevant disciplines and stakeholders.

The learning outcomes of the profile are listed below. Both the capstone project, the workshops and trainings, and the assessment are aligned to supervise the student in achieving these learning outcomes by the end of this profile.

In the context of Communication, the student is able to:

• Communicate effectively and appropriately both orally and in writing in a multidisciplinary setting.

In the context of Reflection, the student is able to:

• Formulate his own strengths and weaknesses in expertise and in professional skills such as communication and collaboration;
• Apply the learning cycle of Kolb (see below);
• Handle ambiguity in a resilient manner.

In the context of Translational science, the student is able to:

• Identify a life science related societal need and translate this need towards a well-defined problem definition revealing the root cause;
• Recognise and integrate the needs and intentions from stakeholders and other disciplines that are related to the unmet societal need and solutions;
• Design a feasible solution that alleviates or satisfies the identified social/societal need and takes the entrepreneurial perspective into account;
• Execute a pilot or test a concept (prototype) in the field and incorporate the outcomes into a final design or solution.

In the context of boundary crossing, the student is able to:

• Understand the perspectives of peers, and of stakeholders/other disciplines that are related to the unmet societal need and solutions;
• Recognise the limitations and biases of the student’s own discipline, and perceive the added value of other disciplines beyond life sciences to create a solution for an unmet societal need;
• Include information and knowledge from relevant disciplines into the designed solution.

In the context of Collaboration, the student is able to:

• Share knowledge and feelings with the team, convey respect for others, and be open minded towards their ideas;
• Be flexible and compromise when necessary to move the group forward;
• Participate actively and being accountable;
• Provide constructive feedback and accept feedback from others;
• Take the lead, monitor, redirect or adjust the group process.

Content

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS COURSE IS TAUGHT IN EINDHOVEN

Period (from – till): Quartile 2, Time slot A (Mo 1-4, We 9-10, Th 5-8), 9 November 2026 - 31 January 2027.

The course is composed of lectures (incl expert guest lectures), during which the required background knowledge is addressed, in combination with a ‘startup-challenge’ based on clinical cases. For the startup challenge, the student is challenged to identify a promising innovation in the field of immunomodulatory biomaterials for a specific clinical case (based on scientific literature). The selected innovation is pitched as a potential new treatment option, for which the various aspects regarding the bench-to-bedside translation need to be considered. The startup challenge is performed either individually or in small groups (2-3 students), depending on the number of participating students.
 
The lectures revolve around the following four modules:
•    The foreign body response to a biomaterial:Introduction into relevant concepts (biocompatibility, foreign body response); various types of biomaterials (synthetic vs biological, bioresorbable vs non-degradable); inflammation and regeneration; the initial host response (haemostasis, provisional matrix formation, innate immune response).
•    Focusing on the cellular players:The role of macrophages; macrophage polarization, foreign body giant cells, fibrous encapsulation; the role of dendritic cells and adaptive immune cells in the foreign body response.  
•    Immunomodulatory biomaterials and their application in regenerative medicine.
•    Clinical translation: patient-specific factors that influence the host response; predicting the host response to a biomaterial (in vitro models, inter-species variations
For Student Mobility Alliance students: This course requires advanced knowledge of cell biology and basic knowledge of immunology. The course will be delivered on campus. The final exam is a written exam on campus.

Literature/study material used:
Required:
S.F. Badylak, (ed.).Host Response to Biomaterials – The Impact of Host Response on Biomaterials Selection, Elsevier 2015.
Available for free as e-book within TU/e domain
ISBN 978-0-12-800196-7
Recommended:
G. MacPherson and J. Austyn.Exploring Immunology: Concepts and Evidence, Wiley. As reference guide immunology
ISBN 978-3-527-33577-0

Registration:
Please register at Osiris of the TU/e, course code: 8MM50

Mandatory for students in own Master’s programme:
No

Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programme:
No

Prerequisite knowledge:
NA
• 8TA00 - Cell and tissue • 8TC00 - Immunology & infection • 8WC00 - Regeneration • 8SC00 - Materials science

Additional: you did not complete course 8WC10.