Darrell J. Irvine

Eugene Bell Career Development Assistant Professor in Tissue Engineering
Department of Materials Science & Engineering
Division of Bioengineering & Environmental Health

B.S. Engineering Physics, University of Pittsburgh, 1985
Ph.D. Polymer Science and Technology, MIT, 2000

Room 8-425, 77 Mass. Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139
617- 452-4174 (phone) 617-452-3293 (fax)
djirvine@mit.edu
Professor Irvine's research group

The Irvine laboratory works at the interface of materials science and immunology: They use synthetic model systems to study immune cell biology and synthesize new materials for vaccines/immunotherapy, using a mechanistic understanding of the immune system to guide the design of these materials. They have pioneered the use of patterned surfaces as tools to dissect T-cell activation, using the ability to control the density, placement, and mobility of T-cell ligands, supported membranes, or entire cells on surfaces to dissect the functions of the immunological synapse in T-cell triggering. In a second focus, they study leukocyte chemotaxis/chemokinesis; they have discovered novel mechanisms for chemokine-mediated control of naïve lymphocyte migration, and shown that both T-cell and B cell migration in secondary lymphoid organs may be regulated by a complex interplay of chemokinesis and chemotaxis. Building on these fundamental findings, they have developed chemokine-releasing microparticles and hydrogels as tools to study immune cell migration and adjuvants to modulate cell migration in vaccines and immunotherapy. Finally, they have developed nanoparticles that can address key challenges in immunotherapy: (i) vaccine particles that co-deliver high doses of antigen in concert with immunostimulatory ligands, (ii) nanoparticles that deliver proteins or oligonucleotides to the cytosol of dendritic cells without cytotoxicity, and (iii) synthetic particles with surfaces structurally mimicking the envelope of pathogens.

Selected Publications

Hu Y, Litwin T, Nagaraja AR, Kwong B, Katz J, Watson N, and Irvine DJ, “Cytosolic delivery of membrane-impermeable molecules in dendritic cells using pH-responsive core-shell nanoparticles,” Nano Letters 7(10) 3056-3064 (2007).

Stachowiak AN and Irvine DJ, “Inverse opal hydrogel-collagen composite scaffolds as a supportive microenvironment for immune cell migration,” Journal of Biomedical Materials Research A, published online Oct. 15, 2007.

Doh J, and Irvine DJ, “Immunological Synapse Arrays: Patterned Protein Surfaces that Template Immunological Synapse Structure Formation in T Cells,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 103(15) 5700-5705 (2006). Pubmed Central ID: 1458636

Kim H, Cohen RE, Hammond PT, and Irvine DJ, “Live Lymphocyte Arrays for Biosensing,” Advanced Functional Materials, 16 1313-1323 (2006).

Zhao X, Jain S, Larman HB, Gonzalez S, and Irvine DJ, “Directed cell migration via chemoattractants released from degradable microspheres,” Biomaterials, 26(24) 5048-5063 (2005).

Prof. Irvine was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a five-year appointment that provides researchers with resources and flexibility to pursue new ideas. See the MIT News Office for further details (May 2008).

Technology Insider profiled Prof. Irvine's work on immunology research and his ordered 3D scaffold environment in their Dec. 2004 issue. In Sept. 2004, Prof. Irvine was named to Technology Review's TR100, the magazine's list of young innovators who will change technology. See Tech Talk and Technology Review for more information.