ERC: Research Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues

9731643 NEREM该奖项创立了活组织工程工程研究中心。牵头机构是佐治亚理工学院，埃默里大学医学院是核心合作机构。根据一项新的合作协议，这笔资金将用于前五年的工作，可能持续10年。这次伦理委员会将在适当的时候处理一个对健康和卫生保健非常重要的领域。组织工程行业处于起步阶段，该领域的许多发展都是基于经验主义或艺术。该中心将为组织工程领域带来对潜在生物和工程原理的更基本的理解，填补目前存在于学术理解和工业实践之间的差距。同样，如果不是更重要的话，该中心将培养训练有素的工程师，他们在生物和医学科学方面有很强的背景，与临床从业人员和工业界密切合作。该ERC的重点是设计和开发替代、增强或维持自然组织功能的组织替代品。该中心的研究项目分为三个重点，代表了组织工程的连续挑战：细胞技术，细胞构建技术（原型器官或组织结构）和融入生命系统。ERC将结合医学理论和实践方面的专业知识，研究组织细胞的潜在生物学和免疫反应，将基础工程设计概念应用于细胞结构或结构的生长和功能，并将这些结构整合到生命系统中。该中心承诺在组织功能的基础理解和组织替代所需的技术方面取得突破。这两个机构将开发一个生物工程联合项目，以支持欧洲生物研究委员会。ERC的外展将涉及斯佩尔曼学院和莫尔豪斯学院，这是当地历史悠久的黑人机构，以及一个涉及当地高中教师和学生的特别项目。工业界将通过代表新兴初创企业和成熟企业的一组公司积极参与。该奖项是ERC在1997-98财年工程研究中心竞赛（ERC Program Announcement, NSF 97-5）中预提案的结果。

9731643 NEREM This award initiates the Engineering Research Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues. The lead institution is the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Emory University School of Medicine is a core partner institution. The award funds the first five years of effort under a new cooperative agreement, with a potential duration of ten years. This ERC will address an area of great importance to health and health care at an opportune time. The tissue engineering industry is at a nascent stage, and many of the developments in the field are based on empiricism or art. This center will bring a more fundamental understanding of the underlying biological and engineering principles to the area of tissue engineering, filling the gap that currently exists between academic understanding and industrial reduction to practice. Equally, if not more importantly, this Center will produce well trained engineers with a strong background in the biological and medical sciences who have worked closely with clinical practitioners and industry. This ERC focuses on the design and development of tissue substitutes that replace, enhance or maintain natural tissue function. The Center's research program is organized into three thrusts that represent a continuum of the challenges of tissue engineering: cell technology, cell construct technology (prototype organ or tissues structures) and integration into living systems. Integrated with expertise in medical theory and practice, the ERC will carry out research on the underlying biology and immune response of tissue cells, the application of fundamental engineering design concepts to the growth and function of cell structures or constructs, and the incorporation of these constructs into living systems. This Center promises to produce breakthroughs in both the underlying understanding of tissue function and the technology required for tissue replacement. The two institutions will develop a joint program of bioengineering in support of th e ERC. ERC outreach will involve Spellman College and Morehouse College, local historically Black institutions, and a special program to involve local high school teachers and their students. Industry will be actively involved through a group of firms, representing both emerging start-up and well-established firms. This award is the outcome of the entry of this ERC's pre-proposal in the FY 1997-98 Engineering Research Centers Competition under the ERC Program Announcement, NSF 97-5.