Dr. Molly M. Stevens Abstract:

Clinical Applications of Nanotechnology: Examples in Tissue Regeneration and Biosensing

A disagreeable side effect of longer life-spans is the failure of one part of the body – the knees, for example – before the body as a whole is ready to surrender. The search for replacement body parts has fueled the highly interdisciplinary field of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

This talk will describe our research using directed stem cell differentiation for musculoskeletal engineering and new approaches in tissue regeneration including modulation of cell behavior through nanoscale architecture.

Another example of bio-inspired engineering is the use of biomolecular assembly processes to create higher order architectures. This talk will discuss how peptide-peptide recognition can be exploited to create new dynamic nano-materials that can assemble and disassemble under physiologically accessible environmental conditions and in response to biological stimuli. Potential applications in medical science include the generation of novel tunable and/or switchable materials, useful for biosensing and drug delivery.