Tissue engineering

Satellite Bio, a startup co-founded by Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia, aims to create “tissue implants to ‘repair, restore, or even replace’ diseased or dying organs,” reports Ryan Cross for The Boston Globe.

Forbes has named Raya Ani ’94, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala MCP PhD ’81, ’78, and former postdoc Shulamit Levenberg to their 50 Over 50 list, which highlights women from Europe, the Middle East and Asia who are leading the way, reports Maggie McGrath for Forbes. “Women around the world are proving that 50 and beyond is the new golden age,” writes McGrath.

Researchers from MIT and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras have developed a new technique to grow and culture human brain tissue in an inexpensive bioreactor, writes Christa Lesté-Lasserre for New Scientist. The researchers have now “reported the growth of a brain organoid over seven days. This demonstrates that the brain cells can thrive inside the chip.”

MIT researchers have developed a new way to grow liver tissue, writes Jamie Ducharme for Boston Magazine. “These minuscule structures expanded to 50 times their starting size,” Ducharme explains, “and performed normal liver functions like metabolism regulation, bile production, and detoxification.”

MIT researchers have engineered an expandable liver from human liver cells that can grow up to 50 times its original size, reports Lindsay Kalter for the Boston Herald. In the future, the researchers would like to make the expandable livers smarter, “by embedding sensors in them to tell us how they are doing,” explains Prof. Sangeeta Bhatia.

MIT researchers have developed a new way to engineer liver tissue that involves implanting tiny “seeds” of liver tissue, which expand to perform normal liver functions, reports Robert Preidt for U.S. News & World Report. The technique could one day “help reduce long wait lists for liver transplants.”

Prof. Robert Langer talks to Jessica Harris from NPR about his research on tissue engineering and drug delivery, the commercialization of his discoveries, and the many companies he has started. Langer says he started his lab based off his desire to improve people’s lives by conducting research “at the interface of chemical engineering and medicine.” 

NPR’s Jessica Harris speaks with Prof. Robert Langer about his pioneering work with drug delivery and tissue engineering. “My goals were to do things that I someday thought might improve people’s lives,” says Langer.

MIT Professor Katharina Ribbeck was named one of “The Brilliant Ten of 2014” by Popular Science magazine for “surprising discoveries about the sophisticated role of mucus, information she’s using to engineer an alternative to antibiotics.”

Melissa Malamut of Boston Magazine writes that MIT chemical engineers have developed a new treatment for bone injuries. The researchers developed an implantable tissue scaffold coated with bone growth factors that helps the body quickly form new bone.