NEXT TALK: Next talk 31st of October, 7pm - Sesonal mood disorders
Cittie Of Yorke, 22 High Holborn, WC1V 6BN
Customised grafts in minutes - printer is optional. The power of tissue engineering for healthcare. 2014/05/27
When we think of tissue engineering our present image is most likely to be one of GROWING the spare parts we need from cells in a bioreactor. But there is a quiet revolution which might flip that image to one where we really can FABRICATE living tissues. We can already make simple, living tissues in minutes, The ability to fabricate living ‘tissues’ is opening up exciting opportunities for animal sparing-drug screening and disease assessment; as well as for surgical implants. These made-tissues are the same every time, economical (mass-produced) and made in almost any (designable) shape, strength or content we wish. So much so that we can make tissues which are never found in the body. In this, the revolution is not ‘coming’, it is here now.
Prof. Robert Brown
Professor Robert Brown directs the UCL Centre for Tissue Regeneration Sciences. He was trained in Zoology and Rheumatology leading to research in industrial blood-products and then academic orthopaedics. Early research in collagen and angiogenesis led him to establish the UCL Tissue Repair Centre based in Plastic & Reconstructive Surgery. Interdisciplinary links with Mechanical Engineering produced new basic science understanding of cell and matrix mechanics, in 3D, and cell-mechanical techniques to control both scarring and simple tissue growth (now in commercial use). Over 10yrs, this has evolved into effective technologies for fabricating (rather than growing) both 3D model tissues for screening and testing -eg drugs & customised treatments- and clinically useful graft tissues for surgical repair and reconstruction. This tissue layer-fabrication process, invented in 2005 by the group is known as collagen plastic compression (commercially available as ‘RAFT’ kits). As UCL’s first professor of tissue engineering he has developed this process into many forms of machine-fabrication of tissues (cornea, skin, tendon, nerve, urothelium) described in ~200 peer-reviewed publications and 18 patent families, most of which have been licenced to industry. He teaches and promotes interdisciplinary research internationally. In the course of which, he has established international networks of research scientists, in Europe and China, and written the first single entry cross-disciplinary entry textbook on Tissue Engineering.
