BME7900 Seminar Series - Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, PhD

Description

We welcome our next speaker, Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic from Columbia University. Engineering Human Tissues for Medical Impact Abstract: The classical paradigm of tissue engineering involves the integrated use of human stem cells, biomaterial scaffolds (providing a structural and logistic template for tissue formation) and bioreactors (providing environmental control, dynamic sequences of molecular and physical signaling, and insights into the structure and function of the forming tissues). This biomimetic approach results in an increasingly successful representation of the environmental milieu of tissue development, regeneration and disease. Living human tissues are now being tailored to the patient and the condition being treated. A reverse paradigm is emerging in recent years, with the development of the “organs on a chip” platforms for modeling of integrated human physiology, using micro-tissues derived from human iPS cells and functionally connected by vascular perfusion. In all cases, the critical questions relate to our ability to recapitulate the cell niches, using bioengineering tools. To illustrate the state of the art in the field and reflect on the current challenges and opportunities, this talk will discuss: (i) anatomically correct bone regeneration, (ii) bioengineering of the lung, and (iii) the use of “organs on a chip” for patient-specific studies of human physiology, injury, healing and disease. Bio: Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic is University Professor, the highest academic rank at Columbia University and the first engineer at Columbia to receive this distinction. She is also the Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medicine, serving on faculty in the Department of Medicine and College of Dental Medicine, and directing the NIH-funded national resource center for tissue engineering. The focus of her lab is on engineering functional human tissues for use in regenerative medicine, studies of development and disease, and patient-specific “organs-on-a-chip” platforms. Her studies were reported in Nature, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, PNAS, Cell Stem Cell, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine, and are highly cited (h=128). She mentored over 150 trainees, licensed numerous patents, and launched four start-up companies with the members of her lab. Gordana is currently serving on the NIBIB Council and the HHMI Scientific Review Board. Among her many recognitions, she was decorated by the Order of Karadjordje Star - Serbia’s highest honor, and elected to the Academia Europaea, Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.