Category Archives: BioEngineering

A UCLA professor is working to develop a treatment for spinal cord injuries, which are currently incurable.

Stephanie Seidlits, assistant professor of bioengineering, will attempt to use biomaterial made out of hyaluronic acid a long chain of sugars in the body to create a treatment that can be injected into spinal cords. Seidlits will conduct the research with students using a $500,000 grant she won March 1.

The prestigious CAREER award, granted by the National Science Foundation, aims to support scholars who effectively integrate research with education. Seidlits plans to use her research as a project for students in Bioengineering 177: Bioengineering Capstone Design next fall.

Alongside Seidlits, students will be able to investigate the effects of hyaluronic acid on spinal cord cell regeneration using an in vitro device. Using the device, researchers will be able to replicate the cell environment of an injured spinal cord and analyze how HA reacts to that environment.

When the spinal cord is injured, HA, a polymer composed of long sugar chains that support tissue structure, breaks down into smaller fragments to initiate healing. The short fragments are supposed to be replaced by longer ones, but sometimes they stay in the spinal cord, causing inflammation that prevents healing, Seidlits said.

Past research has examined whether HA as a biomaterial can reduce scarring from spinal cord injuries, with mixed results. Seidlits said she thinks the difference in fragment lengths could be a cause for the different outcomes. Her research will determine whether she can control how the cells react to short and long fragments of HA to prevent inflammation.

A big problem is that the people doing the chemistry dont account for the fact that the short fragments act differently than long fragments, Seidlits said. They just put them all together.

Seidlits and students will use the engineered device to test the biomaterials effectiveness before eventually testing it in mices spinal cord tissue.

Observing the cells through the device is better than observing them in a petri dish, which is unable to fully predict how the biomaterial impacts spinal cord cell regeneration in humans, she said. This also minimizes use of mice in experiments.

Arshia Ehsanipour, a graduate student researcher in Seidlits lab, said one of the challenges of engineering a biomaterial is integrating the HA gel material with the native spinal cord tissue.

Its a gel consistency, (so) cells have nowhere to crawl in (the spinal cord), Ehsanipour said. My goal is to get it to be more of a sponge so cells can crawl in and interact with the tissue more easily.

Despite these difficulties, Josh Karam, also a graduate student researcher in Seidlits lab, said he hopes their research will be successful.

The research were doing in the lab, the work were aiming for, is impactful because spinal cord injury is a neurodegenerative condition that affects a lot of people, Karam said. Ideally, we create a treatment that helps people to make paralysis a phase rather than a lifestyle.

Seidlits said that if the device they will use to observe the HA chains works well, students in Bioengineering 177 will help publish the research and patent the device.

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UCLA professor developing potential treatment for spinal cord injuries - Daily Bruin

The Regenerative Medicine Workshop at Hilton Head began its third decade with a long and diverse lineup of researchers who presented their latest work on a spacious range of topics, from DNA barcoded technology to strategies to reverse tissue degeneration in rotator cuff injuries.

In other words, the usual dizzying array of up-to-the-minute research from some of the worlds leading scientists and engineers.

But if there was a topical theme to last weeks 21st annual workshop (March 1-4), it was immunology.

The Hilton Head summit has always been a place where you can learn about the great, late breaking innovations in regenerative medicine, says Ned Waller, professor in the Emory University School of Medicine, and a researcher with the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Tech. What striking this year is, half the talks are about immunology.

And that suits Waller just fine. He is director of the Division of Stem Cell Transplantation and Immunotherapy at the Winship Cancer Institute of Emory, where he also directs the Bone Marrow and Stem Cell Transplant Center. And his research presentation at Hilton Head was entitled, Another Arrow in the Anti-cancer Quiver: VIP Immunotherapy.

Waller also is one of three co-directors of the Regenerative Engineering and Medicine (REM) research center, a consortium of research institutes in Georgia: Emory, Georgia Tech, and the University of Georgia. REM is one of four organizing partners of the workshop, the others being the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center at the University of Wisconsin, the Mayo Clinics Center for Regenerative Medicine, and the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.

Accordingly, faculty, post-doctoral, and student researchers from those institutions were well represented. But the workshop also drew researchers from across the spectrum and the planet. Among the speakers were Ronald Germain from the National Institutes of Health, and Molly Stevens from Imperial College in London. Rolando Gittens, who earned his Ph.D. in bioengineering at Georgia Tech in 2012 and is now a research scientist at the Institute for Scientific Research and High Technology Services of Panama.

There were also deep-dive presentations from researchers based at Duke, Harvard, Tufts, and Yale universities, among others, and Jeff Hubbell, the Nerem Lecturer from the University of Chicago (who delivered a talk on Biomolecular Engineering in Regenerative Medicine and Immunotherapies).

Steve Stice, as co-director of the REM from the University of Georgia (UGA), the newest member of the consortium, appreciated the geographic range of work that was presented.

One of the nice things this years is that UGA and other institutions are well represented, says Stice, professor and director of the Regenerative Bioscience Center at UGA and a Petit Institute researcher. So its not just Emory and Georgia Tech, its also Mayo, and Wisconsin, and Pittsburgh, and weve brought in speakers from all over. Its really grown and become a highly recommended event in the regenerative medicine community.

Trainees postdocs, grad students, and at least one undergraduate had a chance to present their work, also. First there was the rapid fire presentations (5 minutes) on Thursday afternoon, then a research poster competition that night, featuring 65 different projects on display.

The winning poster came from Daniel Hachim, a grad student at the University of Pittsburgh, whose project is entitled, Unveiling Macrophage Populations and Mechanisms Driving the Better Remodeling Outcomes Associated with Shifting Phenotype in the Host Response Against Biomaterials.

Cheryl San Emeterio, a Ph.D. student at Georgia Tech, has presented posters the last three years at this event, but this was her first rapid fire presentation.

I thought it was flattering and inspiring, to talk among so many distinguished scientists here, says San Emeterio, who does her research in the lab of Ed Botchwey, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering (a joint department of Emory and Georgia Tech).

Its great to get my work out there on this scale, and I hope that people are interested and want to discuss it further. And maybe we can form some sort of productive collaboration, adds San Emeterio, whose research is entitled, Age-dependent immune Dysregulation during Repair of Volumetric Muscle Injury.

Standing near her poster for most of the evening was Madeline Smerchansky, a Petit Undergraduate Scholar from Georgia Tech attending her first Hilton Head conference. She saw the opportunity as something of an investment.

This is practice for the future, says Smerchansky, a third-year student.

At least one researcher during the four-day workshop offered a glimpse into the future from a perspective that did not include biomolecular science or immunology. Aaron Levine offered his insights , but not the usual stuff based in biomolecular science or bioengineering. Aaron Levine, associate professor in the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech and a Petit Institute researcher, delivered a presentation called, Regenerative Medicine in a Time of Policy Uncertainty.

We havent seen a lot of clear signals yet with how the policy environment is going to play out from the current presidential administration, says Levine, who focused his Friday morning talk on, among other things, potential policy drivers for regenerative medicine, such as the 21st Century Cures Act (will it be implemented by this administration, and if so, how much of it?), and the appointment of a commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The future of the Cures Act may be largely dependent on who the next FDA commissioner is, noted to Arnie Caplan, of Case Western University, during Levines post-talk Q&A session.

Later that evening, it was Caplans turn to take center stage, with Chris Evans of the Mayo Clinic.

They were the main event, you might say. With a backdrop of Caplan and Evans as photo-enhanced boxers, the mood was light for their Friday night debate, entitled, MSCs are Not Stem Cells. Or, as Nerem put it, is an MSC a mesenchymal stem cells, a medical signaling cell, or a mediocre scientific concept.

By all accounts, they verbally fought to a draw. But who knows. Maybe there will be a rematch in 2018, when the Regenerative Medicine Workshop will return to Hilton Head (March 21-24).

CONTACT:

Jerry Grillo Communications Officer II Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience

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Regenerative Medicine Workshop, Part 21 - Research Horizons

Kevin Healy, professor of bioengineering and materials science and engineering, leads Berkeleys role in a new craniofacial research center, C-DOCTOR.

UC Berkeleyis part ofa California-based, six-university consortium that has beenawarded $12 million by the National Institutes of Healthto develop strategies for treating craniofacial defects, which affect millions of Americans.

The consortium, called the Center for Dental, Oral and Craniofacial Tissue and Organ Regeneration (C-DOCTOR), is a part of a broader $24 million effort to develop resources and strategies for regenerating dental, oral and craniofacial tissues that have been damaged by disease or injury.

Craniofacial defects have devastating effects on patients, both because vital sensory organs and brain are housed in the cranium and because the face is so important to a persons identity. Such defects also can lead to compromised general health.

C-DOCTORs goal isto shepherd new therapies through preliminary studies and into human clinical trials. Funding for C-DOCTOR comes from the NIHs National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR).

Kevin Healy, professor in the College of Engineering, leads Berkeleys research efforts inC-DOCTOR. Other C-DOCTOR partners include UC San Francisco, University of Southern California, UC Davis, UCLA and Stanford. C-DOCTOR is seeking to establish industry partnerships, identify important clinical applications and evaluate mature tissue-regeneration technologies.

The College of Engineering has had a long history in the area of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, Healy said. Faculty in the departments of bioengineering and materials science are at the forefront of cutting-edge research that will have a transformative impact on craniofacial tissue engineering. The C-DOCTOR funding provides the facilities and resources to support their activity, providing what is necessary to explore interdisciplinary collaborations to achieve the translational goals of the center.

For more on how UC Berkeley is working to treat craniofacial disorders, watch the video below about how researchers here have discovered molecules that give hope for treatingTreacher Collins Syndrome.

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Berkeley engineers join $24 million push for craniofacial repair therapies - UC Berkeley

Patients could one day self-administer vaccines using a needleless, pill-sized technology that jet-releases a stream of vaccine inside the mouth, according to a proof-of-concept study conducted at UC Berkeley.

The study did not test vaccine delivery in people, but demonstrated that the technology, called MucoJet, is capable of delivering vaccine-sized molecules to immune cells in the mouths of animals. The technology is a step toward improved oral vaccine delivery, which holds the promise of building immunity in the mouth's buccal region of cells, where many infections enter the body. When patients hold the MucoJet against the inside of their cheek, the device releases a jet stream that directly targets the buccal region. This region is rich in immune cells but underutilized in immunology because of the challenge of efficiently penetrating the thick mucosal layer in this part of the oral cavity with existing technologies, such as the oral spray often used for influenza vaccination.

In laboratory and animal experiments, the research team showed that the MucoJet can deliver a high-pressure stream of liquid and immune system-triggering molecules that penetrate the mucosal layer to stimulate an immune response in the buccal region. The jet is pressurized, but not uncomfortably so, and would remove the sting of needles.

"The jet is similar in pressure to a water pick that dentists use," said Kiana Aran, who developed the technology while a postdoctoral scholar at Berkeley in the labs of Dorian Liepmann, a professor of mechanical and bioengineering, and Niren Murthy, a professor of bioengineering. Aran is now an assistant professor at the Keck Graduate Institute of Claremont University.

The portable technology, designed to be self-administered, stores vaccines in powder form and could one day enable vaccine delivery to remote locations, but years of further study are needed before the device would be commercially available.

The study will be published March 8 in the journal Science Translational Medicine and is available for download on EurekAlert!.

MucoJet is a 15-by-7-milimeter cylindrical, two-compartment plastic device. The solid components were 3D-printed from an inexpensive biocompatible and water-resistant plastic resin. The exterior compartment holds 250 mililiters of water. The interior compartment is composed of two reservoirs separated by a porous plastic membrane and a movable piston. One interior compartment is a vaccine reservoir, containing a 100-ml chamber of vaccine solution with a piston at one end and a sealed 200-micrometer (m) diameter delivery nozzle at the other end. The other interior compartment is the propellant reservoir, which contains a dry chemical propellant (citric acid and sodium bicarbonate) and is separated from the vaccine reservoir at one end by the built-in porous membrane and movable piston and is sealed at the other end from the exterior compartment with a dissolvable membrane

To administer the MucoJet, a patient clicks together the interior and exterior compartments. The membrane dissolves, water contacts the chemical propellant and the ensuing chemical reaction generates carbon dioxide gas. The gas increases the pressure in the propellant chamber, causing the piston to move. The free-moving piston ensures uniform movement of the ejected drug and blocks the exit of fizz from the carbon dioxide through the nozzle. When the pressure in the propellant chamber is high enough, the force on the piston breaks the nozzle seal of the vaccine reservoir. The vaccine solution is then ejected from the MucoJet nozzle, penetrates the mucosal layer of the buccal tissue, and delivers the vaccine to underlying vaccine targets, called antigen-presenting cells.

To test the MucoJet's delivery system, researchers designed a laboratory experiment in plastic dishes using mucosal layers and buccal tissues from pigs. They tested the MucoJet's ability to deliver ovalbumim, an immune stimulating protein, across the mucosal layer. The experiments showed an eightfold increase in the delivery of ovalbumin over the course of three hours compared to a control experiment of administering ovalbumim with a dropper (similar to how oral vaccines, such as for the flu, are administered today).

The researchers then tested different pressures of the vaccine jet and found that increasing the MucoJet output pressure increased the ovalbumin delivery to the tissue, indicating that the delivery efficiency improves with increased pressure.

"The pressure is very focused, the diameter of the jet is very small, so that's how it penetrates the mucosal layer," Aran said.

The researchers then tested the MucoJet's ability to deliver ovalbumim to buccal tissue in rabbits. The MucoJet delivery resulted in a sevenfold increase in the delivery of ovalbumin compared to control experiments with droppers. Animals treated with ovalbumin by MucoJet had key antibodies in their blood that were three orders of magnitude higher than in the blood from rabbits treated with ovalbumin by a dropper.

The study did not compare the MucoJet to vaccine delivery with a needle, but data suggests that the MucoJet can trigger an immune response that is as good or better than delivery with a needle, especially for mucosal pathogens.

The next step in MucoJet's development is to test the delivery of a real vaccine in larger animals. The researchers hope the MucoJet can be available in five to 10 years. They also hope to engineer a version of the MucoJet that can be swallowed and then release vaccines internally.

The researchers are considering other shapes, sizes and designs to simplify vaccine administration procedures and increase patient compliance, especially for children. For example, the MucoJet could be fabricated into a lollipop.

"Imagine if we could put the Mucojet in a lollipop and have kids hold it in their cheek," Aran said. "They wouldn't have to go to a clinic to get a vaccine."

Link:
Oral delivery system could make vaccination needle-free - Science Daily

(University of California San Diego) Theres a new tool that could revolutionize the fight against cancer. Researchers at UC San Diego have discovered that a blood test could detect the disease in its early stages.

Bioengineers at UC San Diego discovered this blood test by accident. The author of the study that was just released says the blood test can detect cancer and where a tumor is growing in the body. Its a discovery that could change how quickly doctors can make a cancer diagnosis.

In a bioengineering lab at UC San Diego, whats being called the holy grail of early cancer detection might have been discovered.

I think the potential is enormous, says Kun Zhang, PhD, UCSD Bioengineering Professor.

Researchers looked at the blood of cancer patients and found out that not only could they detect cancer, they could also locate where the tumor is growing in the body. The hope is the blood test can be used to cut out invasive procedures such as biopsies. Since the disease will be discovered so early, it will eliminate the need for chemotherapy and radiation.

Many of these therapies cannot completely cure cancer, adds Zhang, They can manage the disease for a certain period of time, and then you relapse, and it goes beyond your control.

Early detection can also help patients with fast growing cancers such as lung and colon, which are usually diagnosed when its too late.

If theres a way to detect there cancers early on when they are highly localized, then maybe a surgical procedure can completely get rid of these cancer cells, says the bioengineering professor.

Zhang says the blood test wouldnt be available to the public for a few more years. The next step is a large clinical study and then it would have to be approved by the FDA. .

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Revolutionizing the fight against cancer - CW6 San Diego - CW6 News

Anthony Alessi For The Bulletin

Bioengineering is the term best used to describe the utilization of multiple disciplines to solve a health-related problem. The incorporated disciplines involved often include medicine, life sciences, mathematics and engineering.

Most recently, bioengineering has emerged as a potential solution for many orthopedic injuries, including those related to sports. Some of the most promising research has been in the area of tendon and ligament regeneration.

Anterior cruciate ligament injuries are among the most common and disabling sports-related injuries. According to the American Orthopedic Society for Sports Medicine, there are approximately 150,000 ACL tears each year. These injuries account for approximately $500 million in health care costs annually in the United States.

The knee is a hinged joint where the femur and tibia articulate. The bony surfaces are cushioned by cartilage. Four main ligaments hold the entire joint together: the ACL, posterior cruciate ligament, medial collateral ligament and the lateral collateral ligament.

ACL injuries are most common in high-intensity sports, including soccer, football and basketball. Damage can result from sudden changes in direction, landing awkwardly after jumping or direct impact from a collision.

Bioengineering is being used to build new ligaments by applying stem cells to a scaffold and allowing the cells to generate a new ligament or through the application of stem cells to allow a ligament to be repaired.

The use of stem cells, osteobiologics and biodegradable synthetic polymers is the frontier of sports medicine surgery and surgical augmentation, said Dr. Cory Edgar, assistant professor of orthopedic surgery and UConn team physician. These approaches will significantly impact surgery success rates, recovery times and return-to-play timelines.

The routine use of bioengineered tendon repair may not be far off.

Dr. Alessi is a neurologist in Norwich and serves as an on-air contributor for ESPN. He is director of UConn NeuroSport and can be reached at agalessi@uchc.edu

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Anthony Alessi: Bioengineering could help orthopedic injuries - Norwich Bulletin