Postponed to Fall 2025
Seminar Series
“Silk Biomaterials and Genitourinary Tissue Engineering”
Carlos R. Estrada, Jr., MD, MBA
Urologist-in-Chief, Boston Children’s Hospital
Alan B. Retik Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School
Abstract: Given their remarkable physical properties and highly tunable characteristics, silk biomaterials represent an attractive option for tissue engineering of the genitourinary tract. A number of surgical conditions and diseases affecting the genitourinary tract are sub- optimally managed with current autologous tissue options. This presentation will cover the use of a novel silk bilayer scaffold in the tissue engineering of various hollow organs.
Biography: Dr. Carlos Estrada is Urologist-in-Chief at Boston Children’s Hospital and the Alan B. Retik Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. He divides his time between clinical work, research, and administrative duties. Clinically, his areas of expertise include neurogenic bladder dysfunction, urodynamics, and reconstructive surgery. His basic research has focused on tissue engineering using silk biomaterials and his clinical research on urodynamics and advanced analytics. His research has been continuously funded by the NIH since 2011, and in addition to tissue engineering-related grants, he was recently awarded an $8M U01 grant to develop educational tools for gender diverse and transgender youth. He is a permanent member of the NIH Biomaterials and Biointerfaces Study Section. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and reviews, and has given numerous national and international lectures on both clinical topics and his research. His department at Boston Children’s Hospital has 22 faculty members, including 17 pediatric urologists, 4 basic science researchers, and a clinical psychologist. Dr. Estrada earned degrees from the College of the Holy Cross (AB, Biology), Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine (MD), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management (MBA). He completed his urology residency at Rush University Medical Center and his fellowship in pediatric urology at Boston Children’s Hospital.
For a zoom link please contact Kate Harrison at kharrison@wpi.edu