[208] Key Harvard-MIT Stem Cell Researcher Speaks Nov. 19 at MTSU

Release date: Nov. 18, 2010

News & Public Affairs contact: Randy Weiler, 615-898-5616 or jweiler@mtsu.edu
Chemistry/Molecular Biosciences contact: Dr. Charles Chusuei, 615-898-2079 or chusuei@mtsu.edu

Key Harvard-MIT Stem Cell Researcher Speaks Nov. 19 at MTSU
Khademhosseini Talk Will Be at 1:50 p.m. in Wiser-Patten Science Hall Room 102

(MURFREESBORO) — Dr. Ali Khademhosseini, assistant professor of medicine and health sciences and technology at Harvard Medical School-MIT and researcher for the Center of Biomedical Engineering at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass., will speak Friday, Nov. 19, at MTSU.

The noted stem-cell researcher will appear in Wiser-Patten Science Hall Room 102, speaking from 1:50 to 3 p.m. His talk is open to the MTSU community—students, faculty, staff—and the general public. The seminar is part of the first-year Molecular Biosciences Ph.D. Program.

“Dr. Khademhosseini is a leading researcher in tissue engineering,” said Dr. Charles Chusuei, who is an associate professor in the MTSU chemistry department.

Khademhosseini’s talk will be on “Microengineered Hydrogels for Stem Cell Bioengineering and Tissue Regeneration.”

“I will outline our work in controlling the cell-microenvironment interactions by using patterned hydrogels to direct the differentiation of stem cells,” the Harvard professor said, adding, “I will describe the fabrication and the use of microscale hydrogels for tissue engineering by using a ‘bottom-up’ and a ‘top-down’ approach.”

Khademhosseini said his “group has also pioneered bottom-up approaches to generate tissues by the assembly of shape-controlled cell-laden microgels (such as tissue-building blocks) that resemble functional tissue units."

“In this approach, microgels were fabricated and seeded with different cell types and induced to self-assemble to generate 3D tissue structures with controlled microarchitecture and cell-cell interactions.”

Earlier this month, officials announced that Khademhosseini will receive the 2011 Society for Biomaterials Young Investigator Award April 13-16 at the SFB annual meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Khademhosseini has earned numerous other awards and accolades in a 10-plus-year professional career. For more about Khademhosseini, who earned his doctorate. in bioengineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2005, visit his website: http://hst.mit.edu/public/people/faculty/facultyBiosketch.jsp?key=Khademhosseini.

Dr. Elliot Altman is the Molecular Biosciences Ph.D. Program director at MTSU.

For more information about Khademhosseini’s visit, contact Chusuei at 615-898-2956, e-mail chusuei@mtsu.edu or view the following on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXnAk2lM-yg.

Media welcomed.

Note: A high-resolution jpeg photo of Dr. Ali Khademhosseini is available. To obtain, please contact Randy Weiler in MTSU News and Public Affairs by calling 615-898-5616 or 615-898-2919, or e-mail jweiler@mtsu.edu.


IN BRIEF: Highly awarded Harvard-MIT stem cell researcher Dr. Ali Khademhosseini will speak Friday, Nov. 19, from 1:50 to 3 p.m. at MTSU in Wiser-Patten Science Hall Room 102. The talk is free and open to the public.
###

Founded in 1911, Middle Tennessee State University is a Tennessee Board of Regents institution located in Murfreesboro and is the state’s largest public undergraduate institution. MTSU now boasts one of the nation’s first master’s degree programs in horse science, and the Council of Graduate Schools in Washington, D.C., acclaims MTSU’s Master of Science in Professional Science degree — the only one in Tennessee — as a model program. This fall, MTSU unveiled three new doctoral degrees in the sciences.

For MTSU news and information, go online to mtsunews.com.