Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute 5 articles published in JoVE Immunology and Infection Bone Marrow Transplantation Platform to Investigate the Role of Dendritic Cells in Graft-versus-Host Disease Hung D. Nguyen*1, Phung Thanh Huong*2, Krystal Hossack1, Sanjeev Gurshaney1, Kevin Ezhakunnel1, Thien-Huong Huynh1, Anamaria Morales Alvarez1, Nhat-Tu Le3, Hung N. Luu4,5 1Cancer Division, Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Central Florida, 2Department of Biochemistry, Hanoi University of Pharmacy, 3Center for Cardiovascular Regeneration, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, Houston Methodist Research Institute, 4Department of Epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, 5Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Hillman Cancer Center Graft-versus-host disease is a major complication after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation. Dendritic cells play a critical role in the pathogenesis of graft-versus-host disease. The current article describes a novel bone marrow transplantation platform to investigate the role of dendritic cells in the development of graft-versus-host disease and the graft-versus-leukemia effect. Cancer Research Acellular and Cellular Lung Model to Study Tumor Metastasis Dhruva K. Mishra1, Min P. Kim1,2 1Department of Surgery, Houston Methodist Hospital Research Institute, 2Division of Thoracic Surgery, Department of Surgery, Weill Cornell Medical College, Houston Methodist Hospital Here, we present a protocol for an ex vivo lung cancer model that mimics the steps of tumor progression and helps to isolate a primary tumor, circulating tumor cells, and metastatic lesions. Developmental Biology Synaptic Microcircuit Modeling with 3D Cocultures of Astrocytes and Neurons from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells Caroline Cvetkovic1, Nupur Basu1, Robert Krencik1 1Center for Neuroregeneration, Department of Neurosurgery, Houston Methodist Research Institute In this protocol, we aim to describe a reproducible method for combining dissociated human pluripotent stem cell derived neurons and astrocytes together into 3D sphere cocultures, maintaining these spheres in free floating conditions, and subsequently measuring synaptic circuit activity of the spheres with immunoanalysis and multielectrode array recordings. Biology Concurrent EEG and Functional MRI Recording and Integration Analysis for Dynamic Cortical Activity Imaging Thinh Nguyen*1, Thomas Potter*1, Christof Karmonik2, Robert Grossman2, Yingchun Zhang1,3 1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Cullen College of Engineering, University of Houston, 2Department of Neurosurgery, Houston Methodist Hospital and Research Institute, 3Guangdong Provincial Work Injury Rehabilitation Center An EEG-fMRI multimodal imaging method, known as the spatiotemporal fMRI-constrained EEG source imaging method, is described here. The presented method employs conditionally-active fMRI sub-maps, or priors, to guide EEG source localization in a manner that improves spatial specificity and limits erroneous results. Bioengineering Porous Silicon Microparticles for Delivery of siRNA Therapeutics Jianliang Shen*1,2, Xiaoyan Wu*1,3, Yeonju Lee1, Joy Wolfram1,4, Zhizhou Yang1, Zong-Wan Mao2, Mauro Ferrari1,5, Haifa Shen1,6 1Department of Nanomedicine, Houston Methodist Research Institute, 2MOE Key Laboratory of Bioinorganic and Synthetic Chemistry, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University, 3Pediatrics Department of Union Hospital, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 4CAS Key Laboratory for Biomedical Effects of Nanomaterials & Nanosafety, National Center for Nanoscience & Technology of China, 5Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, 6Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, Weill Cornell Medical College Delivery remains the main challenge for the therapeutic implementation of small interfering RNA (siRNA). This protocol involves the use of a multifunctional and biocompatible siRNA delivery platform, consisting of arginine and polyethylenimine grafted porous silicon microparticles.