Katsuo Kurabayashi
New York University, NY·Biomedical Engineering
Many vaccines that look promising in animals fail in human clinical trials. One reason is that mice and other animal models do not reproduce how the human immune system learns to remember and fight a germ, which is called adaptive immunity.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
Engineering
- Topics
lymph node-on-a-chip
organ-on-a-chip
microphysiological system
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through May 2027
What they work on
- Build a microfluidic human Lymph node-on-a-Chip that recreates the node's key compartments (paracortex, follicle, subcapsular sinus, lymphatic and blood vessels) with continuous flow of lymph-like fluid.
- Populate the chip with the full set of lymph node cell types, including dendritic cells, T cells, B cells and fibroblasts, so that vaccine antigens can trigger T- and B-cell activation and antibody production as in the body.
- Develop a clinical-trials-on-a-chip protocol that uses the device to assess how well vaccines and adjuvants (immune-boosting additives) stimulate human adaptive immunity, as an alternative to animal models.
More about the research
That response starts mainly in lymph nodes, small organs where vaccines drain after injection. Inside them, a carefully arranged mix of immune and support cells, along with chemical signals called chemokines, work together. Antigen-presenting cells pick up vaccine material and activate T cells and B cells, and the B cells go on to make antibodies. Disease, aging, chronic inflammation or genetic differences can change lymph nodes and weaken vaccine responses. No lab-grown model has yet reproduced this whole process.
Why it matters
Vaccine candidates often fail in clinical trials because animal tests do not predict human immune responses well. A human lymph node chip could let developers screen vaccines and adjuvants against emerging infectious diseases earlier and more accurately. It could also help tailor vaccination strategies for groups whose lymph nodes respond differently, such as older adults or people with chronic inflammation.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Ramin Herati
New York University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Track circulating T follicular helper (cTfh) cells and B cells across repeated hepatitis B vaccine doses, profiling their traits and receptor repertoires to find which features best predict the final protective antibody level.
Jin Xie
University of Georgia, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether anti-CD205 antibody-conjugated calcium nanoparticles (αCaNPs) selectively raise cytosolic calcium in circulating cDC1 dendritic cells and increase their infiltration into tumors in murine head and neck cancer models.
Basak Ural
Columbia University, NY·Microbiology & Immunology·Early-career
Evaluate the functions of the human lung macrophage subset that takes up environmental particles, across donor ages, using lymph nodes and lung tissue from healthy organ donors and high-dimensional transcriptomics.
The school
New York University: 72 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 540 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.