TISSUE ENGINEERING
from petri dish to patient
REVOLUTIONIZING THE FIELD
Dr. Anthony Atala is the Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, an institute at the forefront of tissue engineering. Atala is most famous for his work with tissue-engineered bladders and kidneys, both of which have revolutionized medicine.
When Atala and his team completed the transplant of a bladder made from tissue engineering into a patient in 1999, they became the first to successfully implant a bioengineered organ. In 2006, they published a paper confirming the efficacy of the method of tissue-engineered organ transplant.
In 2010 and 2011, he spoke at the annual TED conference about his innovations in tissue engineered bladders and kidneys and has received multiple awards for his work: the Christopher Columbus Foundation Award, the World Technology Award in Health and Medicine, the Samuel D. Goss Prize, and the Rocovich Gold Medal, among others.
ANTHONY ATALA:
TISSUE-ENGINEERED BLADDERS AND KIDNEYS
Dr. Paolo Macchiarini was a renowned Guest Professor of Regenerative Medicine at the Karolinska Institute until accusations of scientific fraud led to public disapproval and the Karolinska Institute's decision to end his contract in November 2016.
Before the legal maelstrom, Macchiarini was known for his 5 groundbreaking tracheal transplants using nanotechnology and tissue engineering methods, starting in 2011.
His most famous operation was the tracheal transplant in 2013 of a 2-year-old girl born without a trachea named Hannah Warren, the youngest recipient of this experimental procedure. Though she died only 3 months after the operation, the initial success of the surgery proved that tissue engineering could become a major player in the field of medicine.
His work, though controversial, has paved the way for future endeavors in transplanting engineered organs in human patients. His status as a famous, now turned infamous, surgeon has brought tissue engineering to the world stage.
PAOLO MACCHIARINI:
BIOENGINEERED TRACHEAL TRANSPLANTS
The story of how Dr. Yannas of the department of mechanical engineering at MIT and Dr. Burke of Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital started in 1969 when the two began their research on creating a biosynthetic material made of cow tissue, plastics, and shark cartilage that acted as the base for engineered human skin.
In 1980, the material became available commercially and helped treat burn victims without the complications associated with foreign skin grafts from animals like pigs.
The material, consisting of a thin silicone sheet on top and cow and shark tissues on the bottom, provided the scaffold for the patient’s own cells to grow, thus preventing infection, dehydration, and rejection by the immune system. By simply provided a structure on which the human cells can grow, the actual dermis is replenished instead of just generating scar tissue.
This artificial skin, known as “Integra,” has revolutionized the way high-degree burns are treated and signified the start of an era of regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. For his work, Dr. Yannas was inducted to the National Inventors Hall of Fame in May, 2015.
IOANNIS V. YANNAS and JOHN F. BURKE:
INTEGRA® (ARTIFICIAL SKIN)
Organogenesis Inc., a Massachusetts-based company founded in 1985 and focused on soft tissue regneration and bio-active wound healing, is known for its two major products, Apligraf® and Dermagraft®.
Apligraf® is a regenerative medicine product that treats diabetic foot ulcers and venous leg ulcers. Its approval by the FDA in 1998 marked the first the FDA officially approved a product based on bioengineering cells. Rather than applying a topical cream or ointment, patients could now speed up the healing process with the use of real human cells in a bilayer biosynthetic skin regenerative product.
Dermagraft® was only recently acquired by Organogenesis in 2014, yet it remains a key product in the Organogenesis company. Similar to Apligraf®, Dermagraft® is a human skin substitute created to treat diabetic foot ulcers. This product combines a synthetic polyglactin mesh scaffold, human fibroblasts, and the extracellular matrix to create a fully functioning dermal substitute.
These products have revolutionized the commercialization of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
ORGANOGENESIS:
APLIGRAF® and DERMAGRAFT®
