It's been a great couple of months for the PRIME lab! We are so excited to start this project and develop new tools to help better understand (and hopefully diagnose and treat!) autoimmunity.

They have both submitted multiple proposals that have gotten substantially better with feedback and continued improvement. I'm proud of them for winning the awards, but even more proud for the hard work and perseverance they put into applying! Congrats Gabi and Sydney!

Congratulations to two PRIME lab trainees on recent fellowship awards! Gabi Garza received an NIH F31 and @_Sydney_Wheeler received a Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. They are both excellent PhD students at @UMBME. We are so excited to see the outcome of their awesome work!

We are always looking for talented applicants at all levels. Please feel encouraged to contact me with any questions.

The PRIME lab is hiring for a postdoctoral research position. If you have expertise in biomaterials or synthetic biology and are interested in immune dysfunction in autoimmunity or chronic wounds, please apply here: careers.umich.edu/job_detail…

It's been a great few weeks for the PRIME lab. Excited to continue a long thread in chronic wounds from my PhD and very thankful for the support of @NIH!

I am so excited to receive the NSF CAREER to develop biomaterial-based lymphoid structures for studying Tregs. Grateful to the @NSF for this support!

Typically the FBR is viewed as a problematic response to implantable devices. Yet recent work by our group and many others has shown that it can be harnessed for a variety of useful ends. We hope this reframing will inspire others to join this exciting area.

Typically the FBR is viewed as a problematic response to implantable devices. Yet recent work by our group and many others has shown that it can be harnessed for a variety of useful ends. We hope this reframing will inspire others to join this exciting area.

Excited to share our recent review paper in collaboration with @SmittyOakes. nature.com/articles/s44385-0…. We discuss a growing body of work that seeks to leverage the foreign body response (FBR) to implanted materials for good. @UMBME @udbme

Awesome job @_Sydney_Wheeler !

Special thanks to our collaborator @AndresMnzRjs for the help on this project and to @NIBIBgov and @UMengineering for the funding to conduct this work! @UMBME

I'm so proud of @_Sydney_Wheeler for working tirelessly to get this finished and the rest of the team! It's amazing to see it in the world, but also highlights just how long science takes. Sydney started this project simultaneously with the start of the lab in 2022

We expect these tools to be broadly useful in monitoring disease and understanding antigen-specific T cells in autoimmunity, vaccine responses/infectious disease, and even cancer.

Although this paper was largely focused on developing the method, we demonstrate that the approach also works with autoantigens from multiple sclerosis.

When implanted in vivo, these scaffolds enrich antigen-specific T cells at the implant without dramatically altering cell phenotypes (expansion in vitro often required by routine methods can alter phenotypes).

By conjugating antigen to the polymer backbone before fabricating porous scaffolds, we enable reproducible, quantifiable loading of antigen that releases for extended periods. The antigen released gets processed and presented to T-cells.

Excited to share the first paper led by my group and fully conducted in our lab: sciencedirect.com/science/ar… @_Sydney_Wheeler developed new approaches for enriching antigen-specific T-cells in vivo. Current methods are limited by the rarity of these cells and require expansion.

Congratulations on this awesome story finally out in @nchembio from @TheLeonardLab! I'm thrilled to have played even a small role in this exciting work. @HaileyEdelstein and @amparo_cosio, nice job on a really impressive study.