Thursday June 30, 2005
9 AM - 10:30 AM
ENG Z-50 Auditorium

Office Hours:
Thursday June 30, 2005
3:30 PM - 4 PM
ENG B-18

"Biocompatibility at the molecular level"
Prof. Catherine Klapperich
Boston University

Tissue engineering and regenerative medicine are areas of research that will continue to be impacted by advances in micro and nanotechnology. An incomplete understanding of the mechanisms that control tissue regeneration in artificial scaffolds complicates research in these areas, and many of the open questions involve cell-biomaterial interactions at the micron and sub-micron size scales. The tissue engineering “scaffold” is a place where cells are seeded and induced to grow new tissue. New tissue growth can occur before or after implantation. A solid base of research in both engineering and the biomedical sciences has demonstrated that tissue regeneration in synthetic environments is possible and often successful, but is difficult to predict and control. Design of these scaffolds has been conducted largely by trial and error, and little is known about how the chemical and mechanical properties of the scaffold affect the biological response of the seeded cells. As a result, it has proven significantly more difficult to engineer more complex tissues like cartilage, bone, nerves and muscle. By considering the biological response of cells to scaffolds a material property that can be controlled by altering processing variables, we can begin to build the framework necessary for intelligent de novo design of scaffold materials. In order for biological response to be a useful design variable, it must be quantifiable. This talk will describe techniques aimed at quantifying biological responses at the sub micron size scale. Discussed are methods to quantify cell response, engineer cell-surface molecules for targeted cell-biomaterials interactions, gain geometric and surface chemical control of cell fate, and direct movement of cells on mechanical gradients. Recent advances in materials processing that have yielded biomaterials with nanoscale features for use as tissue engineering scaffolds in various organ systems will be talked about. Finally, potential problems with immune responses to nanoscale materials will be covered.