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Ability to fight off infectious disease and biowarfare agents at cellular level the focus of DHS Fellow Erin Steenblock

(May 29, 2007)

The body's ability to fight infection is critical. As DHS Fellow Erin Steenblock will tell you, this can be true whether combating the common cold or fighting off disease or biowarfare agents intentionally introduced through terrorism.

Steenblock, a PhD student in biomedical engineering, is, in essence, preparing for the worst, developing methods to enable humans’ ability to fight infection should an unexpected biological attack fail to be prevented.

Her weapon in the fight is an artificial immune cell engineered in her laboratory at Yale University. Steenblock’s artificial cells mimic the characteristics of cells that naturally instigate immune responses.  In the body, these cells are often unprepared to deal with unfamiliar threats such as engineered organisms, necessitating intervention.

The artificial cells, made of biodegradable polymer microparticles, stimulate cytotoxic T lymphocytes.  Also known as killer T cells, they enable an immune response and counter infection.  Current techniques use artificial or natural cells to produce large numbers of killer T cells that can be transferred to a patient to mount an immune response.

Steenblock’s system is advantageous in its ease of storage and stable shelf-life versus non-artificial systems developed by others. Cell-based systems require time as they must be cultured in a laboratory to achieve a therapeutic amount of cells for use in killer T cell production.

Because Steenblock’s artificial cells are biodegradable, an alternative option is to deliver them directly to a patient, allowing an immune response to function as it is expanding inside the human body.  This approach provides a more rapid reaction to natural or man-made disease.