Smart façade concept for the renovation of the TU/e main building

The company assignment proposes a new facade concept,referred to as Breathing façade., for the renovation of the Main Building of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), referred to as Project 3 of Masterplan Campus 2020. The design concept describes and prioritizes which assets should and shouldn't be included in the façade design to generate the highest value for the TU/e regarding the development of Project 3. The Breathing Façade is a concept which describes the most suitable design for the facade. However, the performance of the façade is related to the building organisation and applied installation concept. Hence, complementary to the façade concept, the study proposes a building organization- and installation concept. The overall concept proposes a light-flooded volume, open up to the environment and communicative with its surroundings. A relative simple façade design, with an intelligent controllable natural ventilation capacity, would ensure a high amount of fresh air and daylight admittance, while ensuring an efficient cooling of the building. Foremost, the proposed design concept distinguishes itself from alternatives in its ability to facilitate an increased study and work efficiency, which are the corebusiness of the university. Hence, the Breathing façade can elevate the renovation of the Main Building to a statement for the TU/e as a whole, to potential investors and future students, by providing the best learning environment possible. The proposed façade concept is the result of a one year, intensive study. Although the relevant information has been gathered in detail and with great care, the scope of the project makes simplifications and assumptions a necessity. The concept proposes a promising perspective on the renovation of the Main Building and provides an innovative design concept which is contrasting to recent building projects on the TU/e campus. As a result, the Breathing façade concept proposes a sustainable design attitude that answers to the ambitions of Project 3 and forms a solid foundation for the renovation of the Main Building

Identification of minor histocompatibility antigens by reverse immunology

T-cell recognition of MiHA plays an important role in the GVT effect of allo-SCT. Selective infusion of T-cells reactive for hematopoiesis-restricted MiHA presented in the context of HLA-class I molecules may help to separate the beneficial GVT effects from GVHD after allo-SCT. To date, only a few MiHA that form attractive targets for adoptive immunotherapy have been characterized and the number of patients that can be treated with such MiHA-selective cell therapy remains limited. In this thesis we focused on __reverse immunology__ as an attractive strategy to identify clinically relevant MiHA and other T-cell epitopes. In this approach peptide predictions are the starting point and peptide candidates are subsequently screened for their capacity to induce a T-cell response. We investigated the feasibility of computational genome-wide prediction of hematopoietic MiHA and alternatively implemented mass spectrometry based HLA-peptidomics as source for candidate peptides. T-cells that reacted with these antigens were collectively isolated by MHC-tetramer pull down. Subsequently, the composition of MHC-tetramer positive T-cell populations was characterized and tested for reactivity against any of the predicted epitopes that was included in the initial MHC-tetramer panel. We generated an algorithm that could be exploited to selectively target T-cells specific for clinically relevant MiHA.Dutch Cancer Society eBioscienceUBL - phd migration 201

IL-2(high) tissue-resident T cells in the human liver: Sentinels for hepatotropic infection

The liver provides a tolerogenic immune niche exploited by several highly prevalent pathogens as well as by primary and metastatic tumors. We have sampled healthy and hepatitis B virus (HBV)-infected human livers to probe for a subset of T cells specialized to overcome local constraints and mediate immunity. We characterize a population of T-bet(lo)Eomes(lo)Blimp-1(hi)Hobit(lo) T cells found within the intrahepatic but not the circulating memory CD8 T cell pool expressing liver-homing/retention markers (CD69(+)CD103(+) CXCR6(+)CXCR3(+)). These tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) are preferentially expanded in patients with partial immune control of HBV infection and can remain in the liver after the resolution of infection, including compartmentalized responses against epitopes within all major HBV proteins. Sequential IL-15 or antigen exposure followed by TGFβ induces liver-adapted TRM, including their signature high expression of exhaustion markers PD-1 and CD39. We suggest that these inhibitory molecules, together with paradoxically robust, rapid, cell-autonomous IL-2 and IFNγ production, equip liver CD8 TRM to survive while exerting local noncytolytic hepatic immunosurveillance

High-Throughput Identification of Potential Minor Histocompatibility Antigens by MHC Tetramer-Based Screening: Feasibility and Limitations

T-cell recognition of minor histocompatibility antigens (MiHA) plays an important role in the graft-versus-tumor (GVT) effect of allogeneic stem cell transplantation (allo-SCT). However, the number of MiHA identified to date remains limited, making clinical application of MiHA reactive T-cell infusion difficult. This study represents the first attempt of genome-wide prediction of MiHA, coupled to the isolation of T-cell populations that react with these antigens. In this unbiased high-throughput MiHA screen, both the possibilities and pitfalls of this approach were investigated. First, 973 polymorphic peptides expressed by hematopoietic stem cells were predicted and screened for HLA-A2 binding. Subsequently a set of 333 high affinity HLA-A2 ligands was identified and post transplantation samples from allo-SCT patients were screened for T-cell reactivity by a combination of pMHC-tetramer-based enrichment and multi-color flow cytometry. Using this approach, 71 peptide-reactive T-cell populations were generated. The isolation of a T-cell line specifically recognizing target cells expressing the MAP4K1IMA antigen demonstrates that identification of MiHA through this approach is in principle feasible. However, with the exception of the known MiHA HMHA1, none of the other T-cell populations that were generated demonstrated recognition of endogenously MiHA expressing target cells, even though recognition of peptide-loaded targets was often apparent

Blimp-1 Rather Than Hobit Drives the Formation of Tissue-Resident Memory CD8+ T Cells in the Lungs

Tissue-resident memory CD8+ T (TRM) cells that develop in the epithelia at portals of pathogen entry are important for improved protection against re-infection. CD8+ TRM cells within the skin and the small intestine are long-lived and maintained independently of circulating memory CD8+ T cells. In contrast to CD8+ TRM cells at these sites, CD8+ TRM cells that arise after influenza virus infection within the lungs display high turnover and require constant recruitment from the circulating memory pool for long-term persistence. The distinct characteristics of CD8+ TRM cell maintenance within the lungs may suggest a unique program of transcriptional regulation of influenza-specific CD8+ TRM cells. We have previously demonstrated that the transcription factors Hobit and Blimp-1 are essential for the formation of CD8+ TRM cells across several tissues, including skin, liver, kidneys, and the small intestine. Here, we addressed the roles of Hobit and Blimp-1 in CD8+ TRM cell differentiation in the lungs after influenza infection using mice deficient for these transcription factors. Hobit was not required for the formation of influenza-specific CD8+ TRM cells in the lungs. In contrast, Blimp-1 was essential for the differentiation of lung CD8+ TRM cells and inhibited the differentiation of central memory CD8+ T (TCM) cells. We conclude that Blimp-1 rather than Hobit mediates the formation of CD8+ TRM cells in the lungs, potentially through control of the lineage choice between TCM and TRM cells during the differentiation of influenza-specific CD8+ T cells

Identifying Individual T Cell Receptors of Optimal Avidity for Tumor Antigens.

Cytotoxic T cells recognize, via their T cell receptors (TCRs), small antigenic peptides presented by the major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) on the surface of professional antigen-presenting cells and infected or malignant cells. The efficiency of T cell triggering critically depends on TCR binding to cognate pMHC, i.e., the TCR-pMHC structural avidity. The binding and kinetic attributes of this interaction are key parameters for protective T cell-mediated immunity, with stronger TCR-pMHC interactions conferring superior T cell activation and responsiveness than weaker ones. However, high-avidity TCRs are not always available, particularly among self/tumor antigen-specific T cells, most of which are eliminated by central and peripheral deletion mechanisms. Consequently, systematic assessment of T cell avidity can greatly help distinguishing protective from non-protective T cells. Here, we review novel strategies to assess TCR-pMHC interaction kinetics, enabling the identification of the functionally most-relevant T cells. We also discuss the significance of these technologies in determining which cells within a naturally occurring polyclonal tumor-specific T cell response would offer the best clinical benefit for use in adoptive therapies, with or without T cell engineering

The Betuwe Line, an evaluation of the planning of a large infrastructure project in the Netherlands

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Simulation and measurement of microbeam dose distribution in lung tissue.

Microbeam radiation therapy (MRT), a so far preclinical method in radiation oncology, modulates treatment doses on a micrometre scale. MRT uses treatment fields with a few ten micrometre wide high dose regions (peaks) separated by a few hundred micrometre wide low dose regions (valleys) and was shown to spare tissue much more effectively than conventional radiation therapy at similar tumour control rates. While preclinical research focused primarily on tumours of the central nervous system, recently also lung tumours have been suggested as a potential target for MRT. This study investigates the effect of the lung microstructure, comprising air cavities of a few hundred mi- crometre diameter, on the microbeam dose distribution in lung. In Monte Carlo simulations different models of heterogeneous lung tissue are compared with pure water and homogeneous air -water mixtures. Experimentally, microbeam dose distributions in porous foam material with cavity sizes similar to the size of lung alveoli were measured with film dosimetry at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France. Simulations and experiments show that the microstructure of the lung has a huge impact on the local doses in the microbeam fields. Locally, material inhomogeneities may change the dose by a factor of 1.7, and also average peak and valley doses substantially differ from those in homogeneous material. Our results imply that accurate dose prediction for MRT in lung requires adequate models of the lung mi- crostructure. Even if only average peak and valley doses are of interest, the assumption of a simple homogeneous air -water mixture is not sufficient. Since anatomic information on a micrometre scale are unavailable for clinical treatment planning, alternative methods and models have to be developed