Table 1.

Summary of models used for assessing the host response to biomaterials.

	Model	Advantages	Drawbacks
In vitro models	Macrophage interrogation of a biomaterial	Enables assessment of macrophage activity as a function of biomaterial properties	Lacks influence of crosstalk between cell types present in the FBR in vivo
	Co-culture of macrophages with other cell types	Allows for investigation of paracrine and juxtracrine signaling on macrophage activity	Limited to one phase of the FBR
In vivo models	Rodent wild-type models	Supports assessment of the phases of the FBR over time	Limited assessment of redundant immune pathways
	Genetically modified mouse models	Provides insight into the pathways and cell types that drive the FBR	Expensive
	Large animal models	Demonstrates translatability of mouse models; clinically relevant	Expensive; highly regulated