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Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Lab
Overview
The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Laboratory at Harvard Medical School works closely with engineers and scientists from MIT and the Draper Laboratories.
Collaborating with Professor Robert Langer from MIT, we began building living tissues using living cells on specially designed degradable plastics. This invention is now patented and being tested worldwide.
Our work is also a part of the Center for Innovations in Minimally Invasive Therapies as well as the Department of Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
Tissue Engineering is a new field in science, medicine and engineering in which living replacements for organs and tissues of the body are designed and built. Almost every tissue and organ of the body has been studied and many are now available for human use or in the final phases of FDA approved trials. Our laboratory at Harvard has been designing and building organs and tissues for almost 15 years. We have worked closely with scientists and engineers at MIT and have studied 27 tissues of the body.
The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Lab uses cells combined with special plastics, which act as the scaffolding upon which the living tissue is built. Several clinical trials are now underway.
For further information, please contact:Dr. Joseph P. Vacanti, M.D.
Massachusetts General Hospital
55 Fruit Street
Warren Building 1157
Boston, MA 02114
Tel: (617) 724-1725
Fax: (617) 724-5057
Group Members
Dr. Joseph P. Vacanti, M.D
John Homans Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Director of the Wellman Surgical Laboratories, the Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication, and Pediatric Transplantation at MGH.
Major Clinical Interests: general pediatric surgery, biliary atresia, and liver transplantation.
Dr. Vacanti received his BS, summa cum laude, from Creighton University in 1970 and graduated first in his class. He received his MD, with high distinction, from University of Nebraska College of Medicine, and a MS from Harvard Medical School. He trained in General Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital, in Pediatric Surgery at Children's Hospital, Boston, and Transplantation at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Vacanti began research in the field of tissue engineering in 1985. The focus of his laboratory's research has been the design of new tissues that are created using functional cells plus biodegradable polymer scaffolds appropriately configured. Dr. Vacanti has held academic appointments at Harvard Medical School since 1974. He has authored approximately 150 original reports, 30 book chapters and 250 abstracts. He has 50 patents or patents pending in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. Recent awards include recognition from the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine for contributions in the area of tissue replacement and the James Bartlett Brown Award from the Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Dr. Robert Langer, Sc.D.
Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at MIT
Dr. Robert Langer earned a B.S. at Cornell University (1970) and a Sc.D. at MIT (1974), both in Chemical Engineering. Since the mid-70s, Langer has done research at Boston's Children's Hospital Medical Center, in addition to research and teaching at MIT, where he is Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Langer, the sole or co-holder of 320 patents, is one of history's most prolific inventors in biochemistry and medicine. Dr. Langer's most fruitful contributions have come from his research in synthetic polymers: compounds formed from strings of molecules in repeated units.
In the field of controlled drug delivery, Langer invented systems that use biodegradable polymers. These are implanted in the body and then dissolve, as they release drugs directly into the surrounding tissue. For example, Langer and Dr. Henry Brem of Johns Hopkins University Medical School designed polymer wafers that are implanted in the brain to fight cancer with direct chemotherapy. Langer's system was found to be five times more successful in preserving the lives of victims of brain cancer than traditional methods of treatment, with much less severe side-effects.
In the field of tissue engineering, Langer invented methods of using polymers as a base upon which to grow cells for replacement tissues or organs, including skin, cartilage and bone. For example, Langer and Dr. Jay Vacanti developed a system for "seeding" polymers with natural skin cells and then transplanting the resultant hybrid skin to burn victims. Robert Langer has pioneered industries that improve and extend the lives of innumerable persons, many of whom would have no hope otherwise. In honor of his tremendous achievements as an American inventor, academic and scientist, Langer was awarded the 1998 Lemelson-MIT Prize---at $500,000, the world's greatest single cash prize for invention.
Dr. Borenstein
Currently a Principal Member of Technical Staff in the Micromechanical Sensors department at Draper Laboratory, and is the Fabrication Manager of the MEMS processing laboratory.
Dr. Borenstein received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the State University of New York at Albany. He has 15 years experience in semiconductor processing and devices, electronic materials and micromechanics.Since joining Draper in 1994, Dr. Borenstein has developed new MEMS (Microelectromechanical Systems) process technology, with an emphasis on process control and manufacturability. He is task leader on projects aimed at development of a strategic accelerometer and applications of micromachining to tissue engineering for organ replacement. Currently, Dr. Borenstein supervises a team of technicians and associate staff members in the MEMS fabrication lab, as well as two Draper Fellows. Dr. Borenstein has published 36 papers and holds two U.S. Patents. He is a member of the American Physical Society, the Materials Research Society and the Electrochemical Society.
Dr. Stephen N. Oesterle, M.D.
Director of Invasive Services, Cardiology Division at Massachusetts General Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Director, Device Development Laboratoty.
Dr.Stephen Oesterle is a graduate of Harvard College and Yale University School of Medicine. Following his medical training at the Massachusetts General Hospital, he completed a Cardiology fellowship at Stanford University. Dr. Oesterle was John Simpson's first trainee in interventional cardiology. In 1983, Dr.Oesterle took over directorship of the Unit for Coronary Interventions at Stanford. Between 1986- 92, he led interventional cardiology programs in Los Angeles and the District of Columbia, before returning to Stanford as an Associate Professor in 1992. The Stanford cardiac device lab was built under his aegis and remains one of the most productive device labs in the world.erle sits on the Cardiac Catheterization and Interventions Committee for the American College of Cardiology. He serves as a consultant to the United States Food and Drug Administration, Circulatory Systems Devices Panel.
Dr. Oesterle returned to Boston in 1998 to join the Division of Cardiology and CIMIT. In addition to directing Invasive Cardiology Services for the MGH, he leads the CIMIT group focused on Cardiovascular applications.
Dr. Oesterle's research focuses on development of prototype devices for interventional cardiology. An animal device laboratory is being established in conjunction with the Center for Innovative and Minimally Invasive Therapy (CIMIT), where Fellows will have the opportunity to work on the early development of interventional devices prior to human testing. The laboratory is developing both "diagnostic" and "therapeutic" catheters for use in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases. New "diagnostic" catheters will characterize atherosclerotic lesions in terms of biochemistry as well as structure, potentially identifying those lesions at high risk for plaque rupture (leading to acute coronary syndromes). "Therapeutic" catheters are being developed which can deliver drugs and/or gene therapy vectors locally so as to enhance myocardial contractility or to retard progression of atherosclerosis. The lab collaborates with Dr. Joseph Vacanti's tissue engineering lab on novel techniques for cell transfer. In addition, studies on percutaneous in situ coronary artery bypass surgery (PICAB), which were first described at the American College of Cardiology meetings in March 1998, will be continued at MGH.
Dr. Mark C. Fishman, M.D.
Chief of Cardiology, Director of the Cardiovascular Research Center, and the Chief of the Developmental Biology Laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Fishman is a graduate of Yale College and Harvard Medical School. He did his Internal Medicine Residency and Chief Residency at the MGH, postdoctoral research training at the NIH, and sabbatical training with Philip Leder at Harvard Medical School. He serves on several editorial boards, including Development and Circulation Research, and committees of the NIH, including that of NCI for Model Organisms, and that of the National Research Committee of the National Academy of Sciences on Developmental Toxicology. He has been honored by many awards and distinguished lectureships, including the Rita Levi-Montalcini Lectureship of the European Neurosciences Association, the Keith Minor Ford Lectureship of Rochester University, the Simon Dack Lectureship of the American College of Cardiology, and the Colloque Wright pour la Science of the University and Canton of Geneva.
He is preeminent in the fields of genetic and molecular cardiology, with a principle focus upon embryonic heart development. He is best known for studies in developmental genetics, in particular for his role in introducing the zebrafish for genetic dissection of vertebrate organ development and as a model for gene discovery relevant to cardiovascular diseases. In addition, his laboratory has generated much of the genomic infrastructure or this new genetic organism.
Dr. En Li, Ph.D.
Dr. Li holds a Ph.D in Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The main focus of his research is to understand genetic and epigenetic mechanisms by which mammalian embryonic development is regulated. Dr. Li and his laboratory has focused on three research topics. (1) Role of DNA methylation in mammalian development, cancer and aging. (2) Role of TGF-b/Activin/BMP signaling in mammalian gastrulation and organogenesis. (3) Role of TGF-b signaling in angiogenesis.
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