Kewaune Lecture: Engineering Human Tissues for Medical Impact

ENGINEERING HUMAN TISSUES FOR MEDICAL IMPACT

Tissue engineering has progressed in response to the growing clinical demand for biological substitutes capable of restoring tissues compromised by trauma or disease, with the ultimate goal of enabling patient survival and quality of life. For over three decades, regenerative medicine strategies have combined human cells with biomaterial scaffolds (serving as structural and organizational templates for tissue formation), and bioreactors (providing homeostasis along with molecular and physical cues that guide cell differentiation and tissue assembly, along with real-time monitoring of tissue responses. More recently, an additional approach has emerged in the form of microphysiological systems, also known as "organs-on-chip," for their ability to recapitulate organ-level functions in health, injury, disease and regeneration, within biologically inspired environments. These platforms can support individual tissues or link different types of tissues to model systemic conditions. This lecture will discuss engineering of patient-specific human tissues for medical impact, from clinical to microphysiological scale, and highlight some of the opportunities, accomplishments and challenges in this rapidly advancing field.