Bridging the gender gap in autoimmunity with T-cell-targeted biomaterials.

Autoimmune diseases are caused by malfunctions of the immune system and generally impact women at twice the frequency of men. Many of the most serious autoimmune diseases are accompanied by a dysregulation of T-cell phenotype, both regarding the ratio of CD4+ to CD8+ T-cells and proinflammatory versus regulatory phenotypes. Biomaterials, in the form of particles and hydrogels, have shown promise in ameliorating this dysregulation both in vivo and ex vivo.