What to do when joints get a little creaky? How do we fix that bone that just won’t heal? While it seems like a long way off for most of us, the very tissues we rely on for walking, running, and even breathing are fighting a losing battle with time. From the moment we reach skeletal maturity (at around 18 years of age or so), critical components of our musculoskeletal system (our bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons, and ligaments), begin the slow process of degeneration. When we injure ourselves, through overuse or trauma, this inexorable decline in tissue function is accelerated. As we live longer and longer as a population, there is a growing need for novel methods to restore and/or replace failing components of this musculoskeletal system.

Join Dr. Robert L. Mauck, Assistant Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, for a lecture introducing the concept of regenerative medicine, with a specific focus on the engineering of new tissues from their base components (i.e., the cells and extracellular matrix that make up tissues). Students will gain insight into the burgeoning field of ‘Tissue Engineering’, and learn about how this field has combined traditional engineering principles with novel polymer systems and stem cell biology to herald a new day in regenerative medicine. In addition to didactic elements provided through a current review of the field, case examples and success stories will be provided, as will several real-time demonstrations of cutting edge scaffold
engineering.

About Dr. Robert Mauck

Rob Mauck joined the faculty in the Departments of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania in the Summer of 2005. Before coming to Penn, Rob received his Ph.D. from Columbia University under the direction of Dr. Clark Hung and Dr. Gerard Ateshian. Rob went on to do a postdoctoral stint in the Cartilage Biology and Orthopaedics Branch of NIAMS, headed by Dr. Rocky Tuan. While Rob's interests are many and varied, those pertaining to work that are of special interest include:

• Engineering functional equivalents for musculoskeletal tissue engineering applications with particular focus on articular cartilage and meniscus
• Mesenchymal stem cell mechanobiology and signal transduction in chondrogenic differentiation
• Design of novel bioreactor systems to recapitulate the complex loading environment of diarthrodial joints
• Fabrication and application of anistropic nanofibrous scaffolds for directed tissue growth

Videoconference Outline

• What is regenerative medicine/tissue engineering and why do we need it?
• What are the components of a tissue engineered replacement construct? (Cells, Scaffolds, Bioreactors)
• Examples of tissue engineered materials
  • a. Demonstration of gelation by photopolymerization for cell encapsulation
  • b. Demonstration of scaffold production (electrospinning)
• Application of these engineered materials for cartilage and ligament tissue engineering
• Engineered products on the horizon and a the promise of regenerative medicine

Pre-Videoconference Activities

Teachers should have students read Scientific American article by Khademhosseini et al. posted in the Program Resources section of the program page.