AWARDS: Best Poster Award | J Barbosa and D Vasconcelos

Judite Barbosa and Daniela Vasconcelos were handed the Best Poster Award on the First Symposium on Immunomodulation in Cancer and Regeneration.

Their poster is entitled "Development of an immunomodulatory biomaterial: Using resolvin D1 to modulate inflammation” and they provided a short decription of it:

"In our search for immunomodulatory biomaterials capable of modulating the inflammatory response through M2 macrophage polarization, we have developed a new strategy that resulted from the incorporation of resolvin D1 (RvD1), a pro-resolution lipid mediator in porous 3D chitosan (Ch) scaffolds. We have investigated the inflammatory response caused by this biomaterial in vivo using a mouse air-pouch model of inflammation. The developed material caused a decrease in inflammatory cells recruited to the implant site, together with higher numbers of M2 macrophages and lower numbers of M1 macrophages. It also induced a general decrease in pro-inflammatory cytokines, and caused a decrease in the inflammatory cells observed around and within the implant. Our results demonstrate that we were able to develop an immunomodulating biomaterial that triggers a shift in the macrophage response towards an M2 anti-inflammatory, pro-tissue healing phenotype, being a promising strategy to be used in regenerative medicine applications, since manipulation of macrophage effector mechanisms will promote constructive tissue remodeling."

Figure 1: Characterization by flow cytometry of the inflammatory exudates recovered from mouse air-pouches 4 days after implantation. Results are presented as average ± s.e.m. (a) Total number of cell recruited to the air-pouches. (b) Percentage of F4/80⁺ cells. (c) Cells expressing both F4/80⁺ and CD206⁺. (d) Cells expressing both F4/80⁺ and CCR7⁺. (e) Ratio of M2/M1 cells. (Statistically significant differences: *p< 0,05; **p<0,01).