On March 17, 2000 the chemical engineering department invited Dr. Steven George of University of California, Irvine to discuss his research are of strategies for engineering human tissues. During the course of his presentation, Dr. George posed many questions concerning as to why engineer tissues, what a tissue is, and the concept of a tissue engineered lung. Pizza was served to the hungry chemical engineers.
At the beginning of his presentation, Dr. George posed the question, "Why engineer tissues"? The basic response that he presented was that its most important application is that it can prolong life, not only for those who need tissue reconstruction, but everyone in general. His idea behind this is that it is clear that all tissues end up failing at one time. A perfect example of a tissue failing is a heart attack. Also, he illustrated the idea that engineering tissues can improve the quality of life. He gave a statistical model that over sixteen million people suffer from degenerative arthritis; engineering tissues could put an end to suffering from arthritis. Another aspect of why engineering tissues could increase the quality of life is that we would then be able to create artificial skin, a living skin equivalent, which would be of interest to burn patients.
Dr. George next asked, "What is a tissue"? He provided the answer that a tissue is a collection of similar cells and the intercellular substances surrounding them. These are considered the basic building blocks of what we are as living organisms. For the purposes in this lecture, Dr. George acknowledged that we need a 3-D structural arrangement to clearly show what the tissue looks like. He concluded answering this question with a detailed description of extra-cellular components.
He then proposed a question of the functional use and practicality
of a tissue engineered lung. He made it clear that making an entire lung
is largely unrealistic; however, it is possible. He described the process
of making a tissue-engineered lung realistic. He said that the first step
is to study actual lung tissue so it is possible to study how the lung
functions. Only then it will be possible to engineer the lung. The current
technology that we have is still not advanced enough to make the lung,
yet we are able to simulate the applications of drug delivery and would
repair of the lung. Pertaining to the question, he made some general remarks
about the pros and cons of engineering the lung. A summary of his remarks
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The conclusion to his research was that we would be able to use an in-vitro tissue engineered model to study ECM modeling and to understand epithelial-fibroblast interactions. One of the protocols that Dr. George is going to work on will implement making a series of different gels to study for tissue engineering.
The chemical engineering group thanked Dr. George for coming while
swallowing their last slice of pizza.
Submitted by Craig Pribila
ChE 102, Class of 2003