CEP magazine’s May edition includes a Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) Special Section on the emerging field of translational medicine. Though translational medicine has been defined in different ways, the central theme is using a multidisciplinary approach to translate novel scientific and technological findings from bench to bedside to address human health in an affordable manner.
Three articles in the section focus on diagnosis and prevention of diseases and the role of engineers in this aspect of translational medicine. In the first article, Juergen Hahn and coworkers discuss how certain metabolic markers may hold the keys to a more definitive method of diagnosing autism spectrum disorder (ASD). These complex metabolic pathways may also provide clues for intervention and treatment.
On the theme of drug delivery, Brett Geiger, Alan Grodzinsky, and Paula Hammond discuss ways to design nano-carriers that can appropriately diffuse through cartilage and deliver drugs to articular joints. Such a drug delivery system could have a major impact on osteoarthritis patients.
In the next article, Yiannis Kaznessis describes a way to address the antibiotic-resistant bacteria epidemic. Synthetic probiotics, created using synthetic biology techniques to express and deliver bacteriocins in the gastrointestinal tract of livestock, may be promising candidates to replace antibiotics.
Other section highlights:
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Ali Khademhosseini, Samad Ahadian, and Houman Savoji give an overview of the key technological advances in engineered hydrogels for regenerative medicine, enabled by bringing together polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, molecular biology, and microscale technologies.
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Natesh Parashurama, Ogechi Ogoke, and coworkers describe the potential of organoid biology and engineering in the context of regenerative medicine. Mimicking the various complex aspects of the structure and function of human organs presents many challenges and opportunities at the interface of biomaterials and medicine.
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Morgan Ellis and Elizabeth Lipke, describes the exciting prospects of direct production of cardiac tissue using appropriately engineered hybrid biomaterials and human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) as a source for cardiomyocytes.
Read more in the SBE Special Section.
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