Abstract, September 15, 2008
Thermal tumor ablation: Evolution of an emerging cancer therapy, Dr. Chris Brace

Thermal ablation is a minimally invasive procedure rapidly gaining acceptance for the treatment of many tumors. While technological developments have increased the number of patients benefiting from these procedures, more work is needed to improve treatment efficacy, increase specificity, and expand the scope of ablative therapies. These efforts will require a close relationship between engineers, scientists and physicians to be successful. In this presentation, I will review the clinical and engineering challenges for tumor ablation. I will discuss technologies developed in our lab that have already been translated into clinical practice, then outline our ongoing work with multiple-applicator ablation, imaging feedback and combination therapies that we hope will see clinical translation soon.

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Abstract, September 22, 2008
Molecular imaging: Seeing biology in living subjects, Prof. Weibo Cai

Molecular medicine is the future of 21st century patient management. Molecular imaging plays pivotal roles in disease diagnosis, treatment efficacy assessment, drug discovery, and understanding of molecular mechanisms in living systems. From a biomedical engineering perspective, I will present the development of novel molecular imaging probes based on a wide variety of agents including peptides, proteins, and nanoparticles. The use of multimodality imaging techniques (positron emission tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, optical imaging, and computed tomography) to non-invasively monitor the therapeutic efficacy of molecularly targeted cancer therapy will also be illustrated. Most importantly, the molecular nature of these agents/techniques makes them generally applicable to a number of diseases rather than any particular pathological disorder.

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Abstract, September 29, 2008
Hydroxyapatite scaffolds for load-bearing bone defects and the effects of multi-scale porosity, Prof. Amy Wagoner Johnson

Hydroxyapatite (HA) has long been recognized as a promising synthetic bone substitute material. However, clinical applications have been limited because of its inherent brittle behavior. Our research focuses on the influence of multi-scale porosity (MSP) on bone formation and the resulting bone/HA scaffold composite properties. Specifically, two recent in vivo studies showed definitively that scaffolds containing MSP are more osteoconductive than those with a single pore size. Furthermore, scaffolds mechanical behavior transitioned from brittle to bone-like after implantation and this was more pronounced in scaffolds with MSP. Importantly, results also showed that bone grew into the micropores of scaffolds with MSP, despite previous claims that this is not possible for pores of this size. The implication is that, in addition to increasing osteoconductivity, the interconnected microporosity can serve as an additional length scale for tissue growth, thereby creating a co-continuous composite in which both phases (bone and HA) are continuous on both the macro- and micro- length scales. Such a composite could result in significantly improved in vivo properties, such as toughness, and extend the clinical use of HA scaffolds to large and load-bearing defects. This, in turn, could improve the quality of life for millions who would receive bone grafts or for whom grafts have been unsuccessful, and significantly decrease health care costs associated with graft procedures.

Biosketch

Professor Wagoner Johnson received her BS in Materials Science and Engineering from Ohio State in 1996, and MS and PhD in Engineering from Brown University in 1998 and 2001, respectively, with a major in materials science and minor in mechanics. Her thesis topic was related to the deformation behavior of composites for ballistic applications. In August 2001 she joined the Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois as Research Faculty and joined as tenure-track faculty in May of 2005. She has affiliations with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, the Institute for Genomic Biology, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Department of Bioengineering. She recently received the Alice L. Jee Memorial Award at the Sun Valley Workshop on Skeletal Tissue Biology.

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Abstract, November 3, 2008
Human factors engineering perspectives on patient safety: Early results from a multicenter study, Prof. Ben-Tzion Karsh

Medical errors and intentional violations of healthcare delivery safety protocols have received enormous attention lately. This attention has focused blame for patient harm on health care providers. However studying healthcare delivery using the tools and measures of human factors engineering can lead one to different conclusions. This talk will report on early results from a multicenter study of pediatric patient safety and challenge current thinking about what is needed to make healthcare safe.

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Abstract, November 24, 2008
High sampling-rate pacemaker detection from the body surface ECG, Dr. Shen Luo

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Abstract, December 1, 2008
A combined biological and engineering approach towards utilizing human mesenchymal stem cells for wound healing applications, Dr. Michael Schwartz

In order to reach the enormous potential that regenerative medicine offers, tissue engineers would benefit from increasing our understanding of the biology of the tissues we aim to regenerate, both in terms of how cell types interact with one another as well as how cells interact with our materials. In the work presented here, we sought to determine the potential for human mesenchymal stem cells (hMSCs) to stimulate healing of non-healing and large surface area skin wounds. Initial experiments focused on understanding how hMSCs interact with native skin cells through both in vitro coculture experiments and ex vivo delivery to excised human skin. hMSCs stimulated matrix production in dermal fibroblasts and differentiated along myofibroblast, neural, and keratinocyte lineages in a contact-dependent fashion when cocultured with keratinocytes. In wounded human skin, hMSCs adopt a basal keratinocyte phenotype while integrating into the re-epithelializing epidermis and increase myofibroblast and early neural expression when not in contact with the epidermis. Therefore, due to the potential for hMSCs to contribute directly to tissue formation of healing skin, we chose to develop a synthetic delivery system that permits cells to migrate into the wound. To accomplish the goal of allowing hMSCs to migrate into the wound upon delivery, a proteolytically degradable and cell adhesive “thiol-ene” hydrogel platform was developed in which 4-arm poly(ethylene glycol) monomer containing norbornene end groups reacts with thiol-containing molecules through a photoinitiated step-growth process. hMSCs have the capacity to spread, migrate, and proliferate within thiol-ene hydrogels, and therefore should be able to migrate out of the hydrogel and into the wound environment where they may ultimately help to contribute to wound healing. In order to demonstrate the utility of our materials platform in an in vivo system, we are currently studying the thiol-ene/MSC delivery strategy using a mouse model. Therefore, this presentation will demonstrate the identification of a tissue engineering problem and the entire process by which a combination of biology and engineering can be utilized to move towards a clinical application. Potential for our thiol-ene system for tissue modeling and the study of important cell/ECM interactions will also be briefly discussed.

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