Reprogrammed Immune Cells Reduce Rejection of Medical Implants

Image: This intravital microscopy rendering provides a 3D view of tissue implanted with biomaterial and metabolic inhibitors (Photo courtesy of Axel Schmitter-Sánchez/MSU)

Whenever an implant is surgically placed in the human body, an immune response is triggered, and there is always the risk of the implant being rejected. Now, researchers have found that a drug, acting as a metabolic inhibitor, can prime the body to be more receptive to medical devices such as pacemakers, replacement joints, and dental implants.

A multidisciplinary research team from Michigan State University (East Lansing, MI, USA) used a drug that acts as a metabolic modulator, signaling the body to either enhance or suppress a specific immune response. This drug was combined with amorphous polylactide, a biomaterial commonly used for medical implants. The resulting material was then implanted into mice, as described in the study published in Nature Biomedical Engineering. To monitor the immune response, the researchers employed intravital microscopy, a technique that enables real-time observation of living subjects under a microscope, and they tracked various types of immune cells around the implant site for up to ten weeks.

“Our findings have significant implications for improving patient recovery times, reducing postsurgical complications like chronic inflammation and implant rejection and potentially saving costs,” said Ashley Makela, senior research associate at the MSU Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering in the College of Engineering. “And they may eventually affect the way medical device manufacturers and pharmaceutical scientists approach medical implants.”