Neural cells constantly integrate information at different levels of biological organizations and relay them to immune cells in the context of the unique immune features of the brain tissue. Cerebral vasculature actively mediates the cross-talks between immune systems of brain parenchyma and peripheral bloodstream. X-TEL is to illuminate the mediating role of cerebral vasculature and utilize it as a therapeutic target.
We approach it by reconstructing a functional neurovascular unit (NVU), a minimal yet comprehensive tissue structure unit to manifest neurophysiology and the immunological features in the brain. Our model serves as an efficient platform to track the spatiotemporal immune dynamics throughout the disease progression and treatments at the original immune context.
X-TEL is pushing the technical boundaries of recapitulating the cross-talks in an engineered tissue and collecting/analyzing spatiotemporal multi-modal data from it. To implement the multidisciplinary features of our investigations we actively collaborate with research teams across the fields of biomedical engineering, neurobiology, immunology, and oncology.
