EMBS Meetings
Microengineered hydrogels for stem cell bioengineering and tissue regeneration
Ali Khademhosseini, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Center for Biomedical Engineering, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital; Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA; Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, MIT, Cambridge, MA; Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University, Boston, MA
4/30/2014
MIT
http://www.tissueeng.net/lab/
Micro- and nanoscale technologies are emerging as powerful tools for controlling the interaction between cells and their surroundings for biological studies, tissue engineering, and cell-based screening. In addition, hydrogel biomaterials have been increasingly used in various tissue engineering applications since they provide cells with a hydrated 3D microenvironment that mimics the native extracellular matrix. In our lab we have developed various approaches to merge microscale techniques with hydrogel biomaterials for directing stem cell differentiation and generating complex 3D tissues. In this talk, I will outline our work in controlling the cell-microenvironment interactions by using patterned hydrogels to direct the differentiation of stem cells. In addition, I will describe the fabrication and the use of microscale hydrogels for tissue engineering by using a ‘bottom-up’ and a ‘top-down’ approach. Top-down approaches for fabricating complex engineered tissues involve the use of miniaturization techniques to control cell-cell interactions or to recreate biomimetic microvascular networks. Our group has also pioneered bottom-up approaches to generate tissues by the assembly of shape-controlled cell-laden microgels (i.e. tissue building blocks), that resemble functional tissue units. In this approach, microgels were fabricated and induced to self assemble to generate 3D tissue structures with controlled microarchitecture and cell-cell interactions.
Biography
Ali Khademhosseini is an Associate Professor at Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School as well as an Associate Faculty at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and a Junior PI at Japan’s World Premier International-Advanced Institute for Materials Research at Tohoku University where he directs a satellite laboratory. He has authored 300+ journal papers (H-index = 57, >12700 citations) and 50 book chapters. In addition, he has been invited to 200+ invited/keynote lectures. Dr. Khademhosseini’s interdisciplinary research has been recognized by over 30 major national and international awards. He has received early career awards from three major engineering discipline societies: electrical (IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society award and IEEE Nanotechnology award), chemical (Colburn award from the AIChE) and mechanical engineering (Y.C. Fung award from the ASME). He is also a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor given by the US government for early career investigators. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He is an Associate Editor for ACS Nano (IF: 12) and a standing member of NIH BTSS study section. He received his Ph.D. in bioengineering from MIT (2005), and MASc (2001) and BASc (1999) degrees from University of Toronto both in chemical engineering. Read more at: http://www.tissueeng.net/
Stem Cells: Cures or Clones?
Sidney H. Golub
Professor Emeritus, Microbiology & Molecular Genetics
School of Medicine
5/28/2014
UCI
http://www.faculty.uci.edu/scripts/ucifacultyprofiles/detaildept.cfm?id=2306
This talk will focus on the scientific basis for using stem cells and the prospects for clinical use of stem cells. The ethical challenges posed by stem cell research and the oversight mechanisms that have been developed will be discussed. The stem cell program at UCI will be described.
Biography
Dr. Golub obtained his B.S. from Brandeis University, his PH.D. from Temple University School of Medicine (1969) and was a Damon Runyon Fund Postdoctoral Scholar at the Dept. of Tumor Biology, Royal Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden (1969-1971) . He was on the faculty at the UCLA School of Medicine from 1971-1994 and at UCI from 1994 to the present. He was the Executive Director of The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) from 1999-2003.
My current interests focus on research ethics and science policy issues. I am particularly concerned with how we make and implement policy on human stem cells including embryonic and other pluripotent stem cells. One aspect of this interest is exploring the differences between California and the other states on stem cell policy. A related interest focuses on how to promote ethical principles within basic and translational research. My laboratory research program is not currently active. It followed two closely related themes: the in vitro regulation of cytotoxic cells by cell interactions, cytokines, and other regulatory factors and the in vivo expression of cytotoxic cell function in cancer patients. The major focus of these studies was on the regulation and expression of cytotoxicity by human Natural Killer (NK) lymphocytes including the function of lymphocytes at the tumor site (tumor infiltrating lymphocytes, or TILs) as these cells represent the immune response at the interface with the malignant cells.
Nanosensors for cancer diagnostics
Larry Nagahara
6/25/2014
NCI
Medical device development
Company speaker
Date TBD
Medical device regulatory process
Panel Presentation
Date TBD
Intellectual property for medical device companies
Industry Speaker
Date TBD
Neural engineering workshop
Backyard brains
Date TBD
Bioinspired robotics
Yoseph Bar-Cohen
JPL
Date TBD
Micro-nano systems for biomedical engineering
Abraham Lee
Fall 2014
UCI