ERC: Research Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues

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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.