Research Synopsis

Biomedical Engineering

The Biomedical engineering group at Yale University is working on development of optimal scaffolds and matrices for growing tissue specific stem cells to produce functional synthetic tissues. Dr. Mark Saltzman, chairman of Biomedical engineering at Yale, focuses on embedding different sorts of synthetic materials with appropriate biological agents to affect cell function. Dr. Erin Lavik has developed scaffolds that, when implanted into the damage spinal cord, promote regrowth of neurons and lead to functional improvement. She is optimizing these scaffolds by changing pore size, shape and direction, and coating the scaffolds with different biologically active compounds. Dr. Paul van Tassel has expertise in designing synthetic matrices with distinct biodegradable layers, and he is designing these layers to promote stem cell maintenance versus differentiation over time. Dr. Laura Niklason, who was recently recruited to Yale University, is a clinician scientist who was the first investigator to successfully engineer arteries for vascular repair/transplantation. All three of these investigators are highly collaborative and each has ongoing work with faculty members at the Yale School of Medicine, many of whom are in the Tissue Repair group discussed above.