Bioengineering Seminar

Co-hosted by Georgia Tech's Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. 

Michael V. Sefton
University Professor
University of Toronto

Register Here to participate virtually

The central theme is that biomaterials and biomaterial based devices (e.g. cell microcapsules, tissue engineering scaffolds) are agonists of biological responses. These responses include thrombosis (“clotting”), inflammation, immune responses, matrix remodeling, angiogenesis, wound healing; i.e., all aspects of a host response to an implanted material or device. The material is an agonist, much like small molecule drugs; however, the materials are 3-dimensional objects acting across an interface so that the mechanism of action is more complex and our understanding of what is happening is more rudimentary than it is for small molecules. Hence, our challenge is to translate what is known about biological mechanisms with small molecule agonists into a picture of what is occurring with the biomaterial. Depending on the problem, the lab synthesises new polymers, formulates existing polymers into novel forms, assesses surface chemistry and structure, studies cell-material interactions in cell culture and/or conducts in vivo experiments in animals (typically mice and rats). Most of the responses of interest are only evident in vivo and so the in vivo studies are typically key in many projects at the Masters and Ph.D. levels. The University of Toronto has one of the largest health science complexes in North America and a very strong engineering/physical/biological sciences infrastructure so we get ready access to any method or expertise, required.

Special emphasis is given to Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine and particular applications and more details are described on the lab web page.

Faculty host: Alexander Vlahos