Over the last decades, the fabrication of three-dimensional (3D) tissues has become commonplace. However, conventional 3D fabrication techniques are limited in their capacity to produce complex tissue constructs with the required precision and controllability that are needed to replicate their in vivo counterparts. To this end, 3D bioprinting offers great versatility in the fabrication of biomimetic volumetric tissues that are structurally and functionally relevant. The technology enables precise control of the composition, spatial distribution, and architecture of bioprinted constructs facilitating the recapitulation of the delicate shapes and structures of target organs and tissues. This talk will discuss our recent efforts in developing a series of advanced 3D bioprinting strategies along with various cytocompatible bioink formulations. These platform technologies, when combined with microfluidic systems, are likely to provide new opportunities in constructing functional tissues to facilitate regeneration as well as in generating microtissue models for promoting personalized medicine.

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Abstract: Synthetic biology is bringing together engineers, physicists and biologists to model, design and construct biological circuits out of proteins, genes and other bits of DNA, and to use these circuits to rewire and reprogram organisms.  These re-engineered organisms are going to change our lives in the coming years, leading to cheaper drugs, rapid diagnostic tests, and synthetic probiotics to treat infections and a range of complex diseases.  In this talk, we highlight recent efforts to create synthetic gene networks and programmable cells, and discuss a variety of synthetic biology applications in biotechnology and biomedicine.

Biography: Jim Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a Member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology Faculty. He is also a Core Founding Faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.  He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Professor Collins' patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma and medical devices companies, and he has helped to launch a number of companies, including Synlogic and Sherlock Biosciences.  He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship, a MacArthur "Genius" Award and the Dickson Prize in Medicine, and he is an elected member of all three national academies - the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine.

Infections remain one of the most common causes of death worldwide.  Our ability to care for patients with life-threatening infection are limited by poor diagnostics and diminishing treatment options.  Rapid administration of appropriate antibiotics is key to reducing morbidity and mortality from infection.   However, cultures (the gold standard for diagnosis) are limited by long time to result (>48hrs), low sensitivity and specificity, and limited viral or fungal identification.  In almost all cases, patients are started on empiric antibiotics without any knowledge of the offending pathogen.  This one-size-fits-all use of antibiotics leads to resistance, severe side effects, prolonged recovery, or even under-treatment.  Worse still, the antibiotics we have been using are becoming ineffective.  Less than two decades after his discovering, Alexander Fleming noted that microbes become ‘educated’ to resist penicillin.  As more and more pathogenic bacteria develop resistance to multiple classes of antibiotics, previously treatable illnesses will become lethal.  Our multidisciplinary research group has been focused on developing technologies to tackle both of these problems.  With respect to diagnostics three technologies will be described: (1) inexpensive paper-based detection of coliform bacteria; (2) culture-free detection of bacteria in whole blood using field-enhanced enzymatic detection (FEED); and (3) ultra-sensitive nucleic acid amplification using gold nanorods (NR-PCR).  With respect to therapeutics our approach is based on developing nature inspired nanomaterials and physical treatments of biofilms.  Notable examples of antimicrobial nanomaterials include zinc oxide nanoparticles (ZnO-NPs) with shape-dependent enzymatic inhibition and antibacterial effects and graphene quantum dots (GQDs) that stimulate natural dispersion of staphylococcal biofilms through interaction with amyloid forming peptides in the extracellular matrix.  Finally, we have been optimizing the synergist effects of heat, shear stress, and antibiotics on the treatment of medical device associated infection with particular emphasis on catheter associated bloodstream infection.  All examples will highlight a broad transdisciplinary approach spanning acute care medicine, bio/chemical engineering, computational science, and microbiology. 

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