Researchers face a fundamental challenge as they seek to scale up human tissue regeneration from small lab samples to full-size tissues, bones, even whole organs to implant in people to treat disease or traumatic injuries: how to establish a vascular system that delivers blood deep into the developing tissue. a multidisciplinary team of researchers at WPI, along with great minds from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Arkansas State University-Jonesboro have successfully turned to plants for inspiration.
WPI's research in health and biotechnology crosses multiple disciplines and embraces a wide range of focus areas.
Cellular biology—neuronal migration and degeneration, the molecular basis of bacterial adhesion and biofilm formation
Regenerative bioscience and stem cell biology—repairing damaged hearts with adult stem cells, creating bioengineered scaffolds for soft tissue repair, developing methods to reprogram adult cells to act more like stem cells to repair wounds
Tissue mechanics and mechanobiology—exploring how mechanical forces contribute to proper growth and healing of connective tissue and bones
Biophysics—understanding metal ion transport across cell membranes, exploring the role of protein signaling pathways in disease, and uncovering the role of the cell's internal architecture in a host of biological process
Disease treatment—attacking malaria with whole-plant therapy, searching for new drug targets for common fungal infections
Animal behavior—mental flexibility in pollinating insects
News
Biochemist Carissa Olsen studies how changes in the composition of the lipids found in our bodies, particularly those that form part of the structure of our cell membranes, affect our longevity and our health as we age.
November 06, 2018
PhD student Melissa Mobley and biologist Robert Gegear examine bumblebees that have been fed small doses of a neonicotinoid pesticide as part of a study of the effects of the compounds on the long-term stability and survival of bee populations
October 17, 2018
The first step in engineering blood vessels in Marsha Rolle’s lab, rings of tissue self-assembled from smooth muscle cells are shown growing in custom-made wells.
June 07, 2018
From left, Agu, Strong, Tulu, Shubham Jain, a master’s student in robotics engineering, Pedersen, and Dachao Sun, a former PhD student in computer science, discuss an app to monitor chronic wounds, such as the (simulated) diabetic foot ulcer on the table.
February 21, 2018
In her lab, biomedical engineer Marsha Rolle has developed novel methods for growing self-assembling rings of tissue, work that has applications that include the production of engineered blood vessels and, in this study, replacement trachea.
February 14, 2018
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