In the fight against disease, defect and injury, Alan Russell has a novel argument: Why not engineer new tissue and organs to replace sick ones?
Why you should listen to him:
Alan Russell is a professor of surgery -- and of chemical engineering. In crossing the two fields, he is expanding our palette of treatments for disease, injury and congenital defects. We can treat symptoms, he says, or we can replace our damaged parts with bioengineered tissue. As he puts it: "If newts can regenerate a lost limb, why can't we?"
The founding director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine, at the University of Pittsburgh, Russell leads an ambitious biomedicine program that explores tissue engineering, stem cell research, biosurgery and artificial and biohybrid organs. Lately, they've started testing a new kind of heart pump, figured out that Botox can help with enlarged prostate, and identified human adipose cells as having the possibility to repair skeletal muscle. In his own Russell Lab, his team is studying antimicrobial surfaces and helping to develop a therapy to reduce scarring on muscle after injury.
He's also co-founder of Agentase, a company that makes an enzyme-based detector for chemical warfare agents.
"Russell's own research, a blend of biotech and chemical engineering, is directed at finding ways to put biological molecules into everyday materials."Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Blog Posts on TED
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Stem cell news is a step forward for regenerative medicine – November 21, 2007
This morning's pair of announcements on human stem cell research marks a step forward for regenerative medicine -- the study of regrowing or repairing body parts, using the body's own processes. Alan Russell's 2006 TEDTalk is a fascinating roundup of what regenerative medicine could bring: revolutionary treatments for heart disease, severe burns, even the loss of a part of the body. Human stem cells are a vital tool in this discipline -- as are many other bits and pieces. Esquire magazine has an in-depth and charming story about another doctor in Alan Russell's Pittsburgh lab, Dr. Stephen Badylak, and his work with what the magazine calls "pixie dust" ... ground-up pig bladder.
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Why can't we grow new body parts? Alan Russell on TED.com – July 5, 2007
Alan Russell studies regenerative medicine, a breakthrough way of treating disease and injury by helping the body to rebuild itself. He shows how engineered tissue that "speaks the body's language" has helped a man regrow his lost fingertip, how stem cells can rebuild damaged heart muscle, and how cell therapy can regenerate the skin of burned soldiers. This new medicine comes just in time, Russell says -- our aging population, with its steeply rising medical bills, will otherwise (and soon) cause a crisis in health care systems around the world. (Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, CA. Duration: 19:37. Contains graphic medical imagery.) Read more about Alan Russell on TED.com.
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