Immunoengineering is the application of engineering tools and principles to quantitatively study the immune system in health and disease and to develop new therapies or improve existing therapies by precisely controlling and modulating a patient’s immune response.
At the Center for Immunoengineering at Georgia Tech engineers, chemists, physicists, computational scientists, and immunologists come together to collaboratively understand how the immune system works and find breakthrough solutions to improve the lives of patients suffering from cancer, infectious diseases (e.g. HIV, tuberculosis, hepatitis, polio, etc.), autoimmune and inflammatory disorders (e.g. diabetes, lupus, multiple sclerosis, arthritis, fibrosis, asthma, etc.) as well as those undergoing regenerative therapies (e.g. organ transplantation, spinal cord injury, bone, and cartilage repair, etc.).
Researchers at the Center work in collaboration with partners at Emory University including the Emory Vaccine Center, The Lowance Center for Human Immunology, The Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory Children’s Center and the Pediatric Research Centers, The Winship Cancer Institute, etc., as well as with researchers at various colleges and universities around Georgia.
The vision of the center is to become an international leader in Immunoengineering science, technology, and trainee development, and be recognized as such.
The mission of the center is to create breakthrough engineering tools, methods, and solutions for personalized and predictive health-care in patients with a particular focus on the following three Grand Challenges:
a. Ability to rapidly provide a comprehensive immunological status of a patient
b. Ability to quantitatively predict immune function in a patient and
c. Ability to precisely modulate and control the immune response of a patient