CENTER FOR BIOMEDICAL ENGINEERING
  Message from the Director

The mission of the Center for Biomedical Engineering (CBE) is to combine engineering with molecular and cellular biology to develop new approaches to biomedical technology and to foster research in the rapidly growing discipline of Biological Engineering.  With five new members this past year, over 45 CBE faculty  (from departments in the MIT Schools of Engineering and Science, as well as the Whitehead institute, Harvard and Boston University Medical Schools and the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology) carry out interdisciplinary, multi-investigator research programs within CBE. This faculty research provides a training environment for a new generation of graduate and undergraduate students in Bioengineering, at the interface between Engineering and Biology.

To accomplish this mission, a major focus this past year has been the further development of state-of-the-art core facilities,  and a novel Engineering/Biology Seed Grant Program in collaboration with CBE's Industrial Advisory Board. The Core Facilities have been crucial in establishing new multi-investigator collaborations with Harvard Medical School affiliated Hospitals, including a Core Center in Musculoskeletal Diseases focusing on Orthopaedic Gene Therapy and Tissue Engineering, involving 35 investigators from MIT and Harvard, and a collaborative Program in Mechanotransduction In Cardiovascular Cells, focusing on basic research in mechanical regulation of cellular response, with direct application to cardiovascular disease.

Among the many outstanding research accomplishments by CBE faculty this past year,  new developments in neural tissue engineering have emerged based on a novel self assembling peptide scaffold biomaterial.  This emerging technology has resulted in a broad spectrum of biocompatible materials through molecular engineering, which have been used to encapsulate cells such as neurons and chondrocytes. The ongoing DARPA Program in Vascular Tissue Sensors for Generic Toxin and Pathogen Detection, involving 13 Co-PI's, has produced critical advances which have been leveraged, in part, by CBE's Multi-Photon Microscopy facility.
 

ENGINEERING/BIOLOGY SEED GRANT PROGRAM

CBE's Engineering/Biology Seed Grant Program continues to act as a catalyst for such multidisciplinary collaborations, funded by members of CBE's Industrial Advisory Board. CBE's next Industrial Advisory Board meeting will occur this coming Fall 2000, at which students and faculty will present oral and poster presentations summarizing their latest research.

The 1999-2000 Seed Grant awards funded projects on: (1) Collagen-Glycosaminoglycan Matrices As Vehicles For Delivery of Genes for Articular Cartilage Regeneration (Myron Spector, Brigham and Womens Hospital, Ionnis Yannas, MIT, Chris Evans and Bjorn Olsen, Harvard Medical School, with the objective to development  novel biopolymer constructs, using native extracellular matrix macromolecules, for use in gene delivery; with application to cartilage diseases and cartilage repair); (2) Platforms for Enhancing Biomolecular Analysis by Desorption/Ionization Mass Spectrometry (Paul Laibinis and Steven Tannenbaum, MIT,  Paul Matsudaira, Whitehead Institute, with the objective to develop methods and semiconductor nanoparticles for improved matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry for quantitative visualization and identification of peptides, nucleotides, sugars, and other biomolecules); (3) Actin polymerization-driven motility: Rocket propulsion in Listeria monocytogenes (L. Mahadevan, MIT and Tim Mitchison, Harvard Medical School, with the objective to quantify the molecular biophysical mechanisms and mechanochemistry of polymerization driven cellular machines associated with cell migration and with infection mechanisms of pathogens such as Listeria); and (4) Chondrocyte  Migration for Cartilage Wound Repair and Tissue Engineering (D. Lauffenburger, MIT and Teresa Morales, Harvard Medical School, with the objective to study the conditions and mechanisms by which chondrocytes may be induced to migrate on 2-dimensional substrates and subsequently through cartilage matrix, with application to cartilage repair).
 

NEW FACILITIES

This past year, CBE has developed additional state-of-the-art multi-user core facilities for use by undergraduate and graduate students and faculty. In addition to Multi-Photon Imaging and Atomic force Microscopy, a new Cryofixation, Freeze-Fracture/Deep Etch facility is now housed in Room 56-367, comprising two devices: a Leica EM-CPC plunge slam freezer and a Cressington CFE-60 Freeze Fracture System. The combination of these two pieces of equipment will allow users to bring tissue specimens, cell cultures, cell-seeded scaffolds, or other hydrated biomaterials to the facility and take away a dimensionally stable platinum/carbon replica of the cryopreserved ultrastructure as revealed by the fracture plane (etched or unetched). The replica will be suitable for viewing on high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Applications include resolving ultrastructural details of extracellular matrix, scaffold and gel matrices, cell membranes, and intracellular ultrastructure, and can be extended to include histochemical identification of individual matrix/cellular components if combined with techniques such as immunogold labelling. These methods will enable microstructural characterization of tissue engineering matrices and scaffold materials at the submicron level, which is critical to understanding cell-material interactions.