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Tissue Engineering
Tissue engineering is a biomedical engineering discipline that uses a combination of cells, engineering, materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to restore, maintain, improve, or replace different types of biological tissues. Tissue engineering often involves the use of cells placed on tissue scaffolds in the formation of new viable tissue for a medical purpose, but is not limited to applications involving cells and tissue scaffolds. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance, it can be considered as a field of its own. While most definitions of tissue engineering cover a broad range of applications, in practice, the term is closely associated with applications that repair or replace portions of or whole tissues (i.e. organs, bone, cartilage, blood vessels, bladder, skin, muscle etc.). Often, the tissues involved require certain mechanical and structural properties for proper functioning. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Artificial Pancreas
Automated insulin delivery systems are automated (or semi-automated) systems designed to assist people with insulin-requiring diabetes, by automatically adjusting insulin delivery in response to blood glucose levels. Currently available systems (as of October 2020) can only deliver (and regulate delivery of) a single hormone—insulin. Other systems currently in development aim to improve on current systems by adding one or more additional hormones that can be delivered as needed, providing something closer to the endocrine functionality of the pancreas. The endocrine functionality of the pancreas is provided by islet cells which produce the hormones insulin and glucagon. Artificial pancreatic technology mimics the secretion of these hormones into the bloodstream in response to the body's changing blood glucose levels. Maintaining balanced blood sugar levels is crucial to the function of the brain, liver, and kidneys. Therefore, for people with diabetes, it is necessary that t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yuan-Cheng Fung
Yuan-Cheng "Bert" Fung (September 15, 1919 – December 15, 2019) was a Chinese-American bioengineer and writer. He is regarded as a founding figure of bioengineering, tissue engineering, and the "Founder of Modern Biomechanics". Biography Fung was born in Jiangsu Province, China in 1919. He earned a bachelor's degree in 1941 and a master's degree in 1943 from the National Central University (later renamed Nanjing University in mainland China and reinstated in Taiwan), and earned a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology in 1948. Fung was Professor Emeritus and Research Engineer at the University of California San Diego. He published prominent texts along with Pin Tong who was then at Hong Kong University of Science & Technology. Fung died at Jacobs Medical Center in San Diego, California, aged 100, on December 15, 2019. Fung was married to Luna Yu Hsien-Shih, a former mathematician and cofounder of the UC San Diego International Center, until her death in 2017. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology (, ) is the branch of medicine that deals with the diagnosis, treatment, and surgery of eye diseases and disorders. An ophthalmologist is a physician who undergoes subspecialty training in medical and surgical eye care. Following a medical degree, a doctor specialising in ophthalmology must pursue additional postgraduate residency training specific to that field. In the United States, following graduation from medical school, one must complete a four-year residency in ophthalmology to become an ophthalmologist. Following residency, additional specialty training (or fellowship) may be sought in a particular aspect of eye pathology. Ophthalmologists prescribe medications to treat ailments, such as eye diseases, implement laser therapy, and perform surgery when needed. Ophthalmologists provide both primary and specialty eye care—medical and surgical. Most ophthalmologists participate in academic research on eye diseases at some point in their training and many inc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biomimetic
Biomimetics or biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" are derived from (''bios''), life, and μίμησις ('' mīmēsis''), imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι (''mīmeisthai''), to imitate, from μῖμος (''mimos''), actor. A closely related field is bionics. Nature has gone through evolution over the 3.8 billion years since life is estimated to have appeared on the Earth. It has evolved species with high performance using commonly found materials. Surfaces of solids interact with other surfaces and the environment and derive the properties of materials. Biological materials are highly organized from the molecular to the nano-, micro-, and macroscales, often in a hierarchical manner with intricate nanoarchitecture that ultimately makes up a myriad of different functional elements. Properties of materials and surfaces result from a complex interpla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Growth Factor
A growth factor is a naturally occurring substance capable of stimulating cell proliferation, wound healing, and occasionally cellular differentiation. Usually it is a secreted protein or a steroid hormone. Growth factors are important for regulating a variety of cellular processes. Growth factors typically act as signaling molecules between cells. Examples are cytokines and hormones that bind to specific receptors on the surface of their target cells. They often promote cell differentiation and maturation, which varies between growth factors. For example, epidermal growth factor (EGF) enhances osteogenic differentiation ( osteogenesis or bone formation), while fibroblast growth factors and vascular endothelial growth factors stimulate blood vessel differentiation ( angiogenesis). Comparison to cytokines ''Growth factor'' is sometimes used interchangeably among scientists with the term '' cytokine.'' Historically, cytokines were associated with hematopoietic (b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biomaterials
A biomaterial is a substance that has been engineered to interact with biological systems for a medical purpose – either a therapeutic (treat, augment, repair, or replace a tissue function of the body) or a diagnostic one. The corresponding field of study, called biomaterials science or biomaterials engineering, is about fifty years old. It has experienced steady growth over its history, with many companies investing large amounts of money into the development of new products. Biomaterials science encompasses elements of medicine, biology, chemistry, tissue engineering and materials science. A biomaterial is different from a biological material, such as bone, that is produced by a biological system. However, "biomaterial" and "biological material" are often used interchangeably. Further, the word "bioterial" has been proposed as a potential alternate word for biologically-produced materials such as bone, or fungal biocomposites. Additionally, care should be exercised in defini ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several fields such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, economics, etc. It is related to an ''interdiscipline'' or an ''interdisciplinary field,'' which is an organizational unit that crosses traditional boundaries between Outline of academic disciplines, academic disciplines or School of thought, schools of thought, as new needs and professions emerge. Large engineering teams are usually interdisciplinary, as a power station or mobile phone or other project requires the melding of several specialties. However, the term "interdisciplinary" is sometimes confined to academic settings. The term ''interdisciplinary'' is applied within education and training pedagogies to describe studies that use methods and insights of several established disciplines or traditional fields of study. Interdisciplinarity in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Langer
Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng (born August 29, 1948) is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was formerly the Germeshausen Professor of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and maintains activity in the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. He is also a faculty member of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Langer holds over 1,400 granted or pending patents. He is one of the world's most highly cited researchers and his h-index is now (according to Google Scholar, 2023-09-16) 330 with currently over 445,000 citations. He is a widely recognized and cited researcher in biotechnology, especially in the fields of drug delivery systems and tissue engineering. He is the most cited engineer in history and one of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Progenitor Cells
A progenitor cell is a Cell (biology), biological cell that can Cellular differentiation, differentiate into a specific cell type. Stem cell, Stem cells and progenitor cells have this ability in common. However, stem cells are less specified than progenitor cells. Progenitor cells can only differentiate into their "target" cell type. The most important difference between stem cells and progenitor cells is that stem cells can replicate indefinitely, whereas progenitor cells can divide only a limited number of times. Controversy about the exact definition remains and the concept is still evolving. The terms "progenitor cell" and "stem cell" are sometimes equated. Properties Most progenitors are identified as Oligopotency, oligopotent. In this point of view, they can compare to adult stem cells, but progenitors are said to be in a further stage of cell differentiation. They are "midway" between stem cells and fully differentiated cells. The kind of potency they have depends on the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stem Cell
In multicellular organisms, stem cells are undifferentiated or partially differentiated cells that can change into various types of cells and proliferate indefinitely to produce more of the same stem cell. They are the earliest type of cell in a cell lineage. They are found in both embryonic and adult organisms, but they have slightly different properties in each. They are usually distinguished from progenitor cells, which cannot divide indefinitely, and precursor or blast cells, which are usually committed to differentiating into one cell type. In mammals, roughly 50 to 150 cells make up the inner cell mass during the blastocyst stage of embryonic development, around days 5–14. These have stem-cell capability. '' In vivo'', they eventually differentiate into all of the body's cell types (making them pluripotent). This process starts with the differentiation into the three germ layers – the ectoderm, mesoderm and endoderm – at the gastrulation stage. However, whe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
