The PI will present a poster at the CBET Grantees' Meeting.
This is a travel grant. Grant was used to present the nanoparticle toxicity data at the NSF grantee meeting. A graduate student presented the poster. Findings led to some collaborative contacts. Different preparations of nanoparticles showed different toxicity towards cell lines. It is very important that synthesis process of nanoparticles has a tremendous impact cellular uptake. Among those metal and metal oxide nanoparticles only few nanoparticles are under the search light like titanium dioxide (TiO2) and cerium oxide (CeO2) nanoparticles, principally because of their unique catalytic activities and their potential industrial use. TiO2 has been heavily utilized as an industrial nanomaterial because of its oxidizing photocatalytic activity and has been widely used as a white pigment lending to its incorporation in products such as paints, papers, plastics, sunscreens, and cosmetics. CeO2 NPs have emerged as a next-generation nanomaterial because of their wide range of uses in solar cells, fuel cells, gas sensors, oxygen pumps, and refining glass/ceramic production as well as proposed biomedical application. Engineering of such materials alongside immunology may improve our understanding of how certain physiochemical properties of nanomaterials influence immune cells and unveil hidden therapeutic potential, such as vaccine development. One of the most significant components in generating a functional immune response is a healthy dendritic cell (DC) population because of their role as a sentinel for both innate and adaptive immunity. Curiously, despite the fact that DCs have the unique capability to activate naïve T helper (Th) cells acting as a bridge for the innate and adaptive immune response, there remains a deficit of knowledge concerning the role of nanomaterials on human DC physiology and the Th population. In this presentation, we investigated the immunological effects of TiO2 NPs and CeO2 NPs on human DCs and their functionality as measured through allogeneic Th cell activation in vitro.
