Natalie Artzi
Instructor in Anesthesia, Department of Anesthesia, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Research Scientist, Edelman Lab, Harvard-MIT Division for Health Sciences and Technology
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Biomaterials science represents the next frontier in medical therapeutics. Innovations in materials design and formulation have helped create interventions and composite devices previously unimaginable with materials whose structure and function evolve with time. Yet, materials development has outstripped our ability to explain why, when and how these materials work - especially for dynamic erodible materials that are specifically designed to fade away.
Increasingly, materials are being intelligently designed to have specific biological effects in specific medical scenarios. Yet, there is still limited ability to follow material fate and material impact over time. This is especially the case for erodible materials with tunable body elimination rates after implantation and after performing desired function
Erosive materials are dynamic; they change shape, morphology and structure in the same time frame as they exert their desired effects. This dynamism establishes a number of critical challenges as to how these materials are considered - making it difficult to predict in vivo effects, and requiring a new perspective to define tissue and cellular responses to these materials.
I am studying how tissue-material interactions are modulated by the dynamics of erodible materials that change with time within microenvironments whose physical and biochemical properties vary over similar time scales. Understanding how tissues respond to materials can be used to create strategies for designing materials with desired properties to deliver factors secreted by cells or drugs to induce healing.
My research focuses on the synthesis, characterization and optimization of erodible materials for medical applications. Understanding the properties of such dynamic materials in the context of their in vivo environment requires multidisciplinary approach and new instrumental tools. I use rational synthesis of polymer based materials and imaging techniques along with physicochemical and pathological characterization of materials and tissues to directly correlate material structural and physical properties to therapeutic gain. Experimental techniques and methodologies that are being developed as a part of my research endeavor are generally applicable to any material system where interplay between structure, properties, and performance becomes significant.
Projects
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Adhesive Materials
My recent work has focused on development of soft tissue adhesive materials whose properties are titrated to tissue biochemistry to enable optimal adhesion while maintaining biocompatibility. I devised means of assessing tissue surface chemistry. This assay will guide iterative material design and inform selection of optimal tissue-specific materials in the surgical suite for a range of clinical applications. The inclusion of drugs and cells in such system would enable local and controlled release of factors to induce therapeutic benefits. -
Erodible Materials
The lack of means to noninvasively track the erosion of materials in vivo is a limitation in the field of degradable materials. To this end, I developed a noninvasive imaging technique to track material erosion in vitro and in vivo. Using this method, I found that material erosion kinetics in vivo are site-specific and that in vitro erosion follows in vivo kinetics only when the in vivo environment is recapitulated in vitro. I developed mathematical models that predict in vivo erosion from in vitro data to enable rapid screening of materials while minimizing animal use. -
Tissue Engineering
Another avenue of research I pursue aims to understand how host-immune response and therapeutic potential are impacted by the unique interactions of cells with their substratum which are modified by matrix erosion in vivo. When Matrix (Gelfoam) Embedded Endothelial Cells (MEEC) are placed perivascular to an injured vessel, vascular repair is enhanced through paracrine secretion of factors to the site of injury, resulting in reduced stenosis, inflammation and thrombosis. -
Drug Release from Stents
I study the mechanistic basis of drug eluting stents (DES), by characterizing the interrelation between coating erosion, drug release and the resulting clinical effect. These novel stents improve clinical outcome when compared with conventional DES with stable coating.
Contact
Phone: 617-513-0063
Email: nartzi@mit.edu