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Bioengineering at MIT: Building Bridges Between the Sciences, Engineering and Health Care (Part One)

Douglas A. Lauffenburger Linda G. Griffith Angela Belcher: June 4, 2005; Running Time: 1:51:02

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

In Doug Lauffenburger’s view, MIT’s new bioengineering degree program is not merely justified, it is essential. Revolutionary changes in biological sciences—specifically, in molecular biology and genomics—have given scientists the means to understand and control both the building blocks and larger systems of living things. Now, says Lauffenburger, the “operation of biological functions needs to be understood in terms of biomolecular machines.” But the hard part, he says, is “predicting what happens when you manipulate them. It’s almost trial and error. That’s where engineering comes in.”

Linda Griffith provides one paradigm for such research. She is designing a scaffold on which to grow human cells for use in tissue implants. Using a “computer controlled process that builds complex 3D objects up from scratch,” Griffith creates a device that mimics the complex structures of joints and other body parts – suited for joint repair, or bone regeneration. Her research might someday produce organs for transplant. But Griffith’s grander goal involves “putting surgeons out of business,” by eliminating transplants altogether. She’s building a “liver on a chip” – growing liver cells on a tiny wafer with the architecture and molecular properties of actual liver cells. This biomechanical product can be used to test drug toxicity and gene therapies, and perhaps someday to model and block the growth of cancers.

Angela Belcher models her bioengineered devices on some of nature’s most ingenious products, such as the incredibly strong and exquisitely structured abalone shell. She designs on a nanoscale, getting viruses and antibodies to work with inorganic materials. “How far can you push organisms?” Belcher wonders. To date, she’s taught a nontoxic virus to recognize a specific metal used in a semiconductor wafer. Someday viruses could detect atomic defects in electronics. Belcher also describes virus scaffolds for growing semiconductor wires, and for generating lightweight batteries woven into soldier’s uniforms. She’s even looking into ways of spinning viruses, as spiders spin silk, for generating optical materials.

Lecture Details

Location: Kresge Auditorium

About the Speakers

Douglas A. Lauffenburger

Whitaker Professor of Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and Biology Director, Biological Engineering Division

Lauffenburger received his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois in 1975, and his Ph.D.in chemical engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1979. He also serves as director of the Biotechnology Process Engineering Center, and sits on the Executive Committee, MIT Computational and Systems Biology Initiative (CSBi).

Linda G. Griffith

Professor, Biological Engineering and Mechanical Engineering Director, Biotechnology Process Engineering Center

Griffith received a degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Tech in 1982, and a Ph.D. in the same field from the University of California, Berkeley in 1988. She received a National Science Foundation Young Investigator Award in 1991, was named a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers in 1998, and was selected as one of the "Brilliant 10" byPopular Science in 2002.

Angela Belcher

Germeshausen Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, and Biological Engineering

In 2006, Angela Belcher was named 2006 Research Leader of the Year and a member of the Scientific American 50," the magazine's annual list of individuals, teams, companies and other organizations whose accomplishments demonstrate outstanding technological leadership. Belcher was recognized for "the use of custom-evolved viruses to advance nanotechnology," according to the magazine.

Belcher won a MacArthur Fellowship Award in 2004 and has also received the Presidential Early Career Award in Science and Engineering (2000), and the Du Pont Young Investigators Award (1999).

Prior to MIT, Belcher was an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. She received her B.S. in 1991 from the University of California, Santa Barbara and her Ph.D. from the same institution in 1997.

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