Regenerative Medicine Today welcomes Jennifer Braemar Ogilvie, MD. Dr. Ogilvie is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Surgery, Division of Surgical Oncology, Section of Endocrine Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, and a faculty member at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Ogilvie discusses her clinical focus on endocrine surgery and her current regenerative medicine research interests that focus on the development of tissue-engineered endocrine organs, in particular bioengineered parathyroid and adrenal glands. Also, her initial studies on the development of a tumor vaccine and her strong commitment to student mentoring are discussed.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
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Dr. David Vorp is an Associate Professor of Surgery and Bioengineering. He is also the Director of the Vascular Surgery and Vascular Biomechanics Research Lab. His research focuses on the assessment of mechanical factors in the genesis and progression of vascular diseases such as arterial aneurysms, atherosclerosis, vascular graft failure, etc., and in the development of tissue-engineered blood vessels. Dr. Vorp also describes some of the new initiatives of his lab such as the use of tissue engineering to treat urethral dysfunction.

On the podcast, Dr. Vorp introduces his innovative approaches to treat vascular disease and shares the status of these emerging technologies. He also shares his insights on Bioengineering education at the University of Pittsburgh.

For more information on Dr. Vorp, please click here.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
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Dr. Kim S. Jones visits Regenerative Medicine Today and gives us an insight into her exciting research in regenerative medicine. Dr. Jones is an Assistant Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, McMaster University.

Her research interests center on the interactions between tissue engineering and the host response. Tissue engineering is intended to repair, replace or regenerate diseased or damaged tissue. Typically, tissue-engineered constructs are composed of a biomaterial scaffold and functional cells. Such constructs are intended to supplement the supply of organs for transplant. Examples include vascular grafts, skin, artificial kidneys, livers and hearts. Dr. Jones research uses prototype systems to focus on two fundamental issues.

• Host Response to Tissue-Engineered Constructs
• Effect of Host Response on Remodeling in Tissue Engineering

When a body receives an implant, it responds with scarring, inflammation, wound healing or regeneration. It is thus inevitable that tissue-engineered constructs will be remodeled once implanted. Her goal is to divert the remodeling response toward regeneration, but this may be confounded by the nature of the implant. Many of the mediators and cells involved in immune and inflammatory responses are also involved in wound healing and regeneration. As such, we expect that methods used to minimize damaging responses will interact with regeneration. Understanding this interaction is critical in order to direct intelligent design for the next generation of tissue engineering. On the podcast, Dr. Jones describes her work and shares her vision for the future.

Details of Dr. Jones’ work are available here.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
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Dr. Anshu Mathur visits Regenerative Medicine Today and introduces us to her exciting research on regenerative medicine. Dr. Mathur is an Assistant Director for Research at the Laboratory of Reparative Biology and Bioengineering at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

Dr. Mathur’s research objective focuses on elucidating the cell-cell and cell-matrix interactions in tissue engineered constructs developed from biologically derived materials for the treatment of chronic dermal wounds, where mechanical coupling of cell-matrix interface leads to contraction of the wound and cell-cell coupling is required to vascularize and activate normal scarring.

Her current projects are addressing the following areas:

• To elucidate the therapeutic effects of chitosan-fibroin biopolymer blends on matrix-remodeling in order to transform the mechanical environment of the wound, redistribute cell focal adhesions, and influence mechanical properties of the cell and the matrix.
• To exploit silk fibroin biopolymer micro/nano structure to tissue-engineer a scaffold that supports angiogenesis in order to provide blood supply to a healing wound.
• To assess the synergistic effects of emodin loaded chitosan-fibroin nanospheres on chronic dermal wounds and scars by examining the RTK signaling to matrix adhesion sites in fibroblasts using TIRFM, thus providing a novel way to study therapeutic effects of drugs.

Additionally, Dr. Mathur describes a new academic program in bioengineering that is under development at the M.D. Anderson/University of Texas at Austin.

Details of Dr. Mathur’s work are available here.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
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Dr. Milica Radisic visits Regenerative Medicine Today and discusses her studies related to functional tissue engineering. Dr. Radisic is an Assistant Professor, Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto.

In the podcast, Dr. Radisic discusses the research in the Laboratory for Functional Tissue Engineering at the University of Toronto; focus areas include:

• Biomimetic approach to cardiac tissue engineering
• Development of functional, clinically sized (1-5 mm thick), compact cardiac constructs with physiologically relevant cell densities (108 cells/cm3)
• Advanced bioreactors for functional tissue engineering of myocardium
• Biophysical modulation of engineered myocardium
• Separation of heterogeneous cell populations (MEMS)

For more information on Dr. Radisic, please click here.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
McGowan Institute Research Site
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Dr. Michael Sacks visits Regenerative Medicine Today and discusses his work on the characterization of cardiac tissue and the various alternatives-now and in the future-for the repair of heart valves.

Dr. Sacks is the director of the Engineered Tissue Mechanics and Mechanobiology Laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh where the research focuses on the characterization and modeling of the structure-function-biomechanics of native and engineered soft tissues, and linking these studies to the underlying cellular mechanobiology. One of the areas of interest is on the mechanical behavior and function of mitral heart valves, including the development of the first constitutive (stress-strain) models for these tissues using a structural approach.

In the podcast, Dr. Sacks discusses:

• The roles/demands of different heart valves
• The advantages of a pediatric tissue engineered heart valve
• Mechanical and bio-prosthetic heart valves; capabilities and limitations
• Clinical perspective prosthetic valves
• Repair of valves vs. replacement
• Tissue characterization

Dr. Sacks shares his vision on the state of the art and his perspective on the future opportunities for heart valve repair for children and for adults.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
McGowan Institute Research Site
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Dr. Stephen Badylak revisits Regenerative Medicine Today to share updates on his exciting studies on tissue engineering. In February 2006, in Podcast #3 described his use of tissue engineering materials that helps heal skin wounds, torn tendons, injured rotator cuffs, hiatal hernias, and other soft tissue. In that podcast, Dr. Badylak recounted how he first discovered SIS (or small intestinal submucosa), the world-wide effort that helped to usher SIS from the lab to clinical use, and how the material works.

Today, Dr. Badylak describes the work of his lab and collaboration with other colleagues to use tissue engineering to:

• Regenerate a diseased or damaged esophagus, and
• Technology that may lead to the regeneration of damaged or severed digits or limbs

Dr. Badylak is a professor at the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh. For more information about Dr. Badylak, please click here.

Host John Murphy.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:
McGowan Institute Research Site
McGowan Institute Patient Site
McGowan Institute on Facebook
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In our last two podcasts we learned about the bioengineering and clinical use of artificial heart technology. In today’s podcast, you’ll hear about another approach to treatment for heart failure using lab-grown tissues. Dr. William Wagner is working to reconstruct damaged arteries and veins with scaffolds, and is leading a team that is developing a tissue engineered cardiac patch that could help to strengthen heart muscle that has been damaged by a heart attack. Dr. Wagner also will tell us about his work to improve the interface between artificial devices and the body’s tissues, and about a new imaging technique his lab is working on that could help physicians view whether a transplanted heart has been rejected without performing a biopsy.

Dr. William Wagner is a deputy director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine and associate professor of surgery, chemical engineering, and bioengineering at the University of Pittsburgh. To learn more about Dr. Wagner’s research, please click here.

Hosts Leah Kauffman and John Murphy. Interview by Leah Kauffman.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:

McGowan Institute Research Site
McGowan Institute Patient Site
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In podcast #15, we’ll meet two researchers with very different approaches to tissue regeneration. We met both at the 2006 Regenerate World Congress in April.

First we’ll hear from Dr. Kevin Shakesheff of the University of Nottingham. He is developing new scaffolds from a familiar material: polylactic acid, the same stuff that makes up absorbable sutures. Dr. Shakesheff imagines outfitting surgeons with a syringe full of polylactic acid that is enhanced with growth factors — or even the patient’s own cells — to inject into an area that needs help to heal.

Our second interviewee, Dr. Nicholas Rhodes of the University of Liverpool, would like to do away with scaffolds altogether. Rather than introduce bioengineered materials into patients, he’d rather persuade a patient’s cells to do their own bioengineering. Dr. Rhodes is prompting regeneration by harnessing and directing the body’s natural inflammatory response.

Hosts Leah Kauffman and John Murphy. Interview by Leah Kauffman.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:

McGowan Institute Research Site
McGowan Institute Patient Site
McGowan Institute on Facebook

Bone Tissue Engineering

In podcast #13, we talk with Professor Jöns Hilborn and Dr. Ivan Martin, two experts in bone tissue engineering who attended the 2006 Regenerate World Congress in April.

Professor Hilborn of the Department of Materials Chemistry at Sweden’s Uppsala University is engineering cells to produce customized extracellular matrices, which his lab uses as scaffolds to guide the growth of new bone – eventually for the repair of skull and dental defects in humans. Professor Hilborn’s lab also develops new biomaterials that better match the natural tissues in which they are implanted. Finally, Professor Hilborn discusses the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS), which he serves as President-Elect.

Dr. Martin of the University Hospital of Basel, Switzerland uses a bioreactor – a sort of incubator – to encourage the generation of cartilage and bone. In a clinical trial soon to start, Dr. Martin’s team will seed ceramic particles with patients’ own bone marrow-derived progenitor cells, nurture them inside a bioreactor, then use the material to repair damaged disks in the spine. Dr. Martin hopes to expand this approach so that it can be used to span large bone breaks and defects, and he has an ambitious plan to make affordable bioreactors a standard part of the orthopedist’s toolbox.

Hosts Leah Kauffman and John Murphy. Interview by Leah Kauffman.

For more information about the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, visit:

McGowan Institute Research Site
McGowan Institute Patient Site
McGowan Institute on Facebook