Dissertation Introduction

If I am doing this right, I just passed a major milestone in the composition of my doctoral dissertation: I wrote the first paragraph. Saving it for the end - the academic cherry on top of the ice cream called a PhD - helped me keep focused on the prize. I haven't been able to 'blog my thesis' like another stem cell researcher and blogger, so this is all you're going to get, or all you have to put up with.

In the United States, cardiovascular disease accounts for nearly 2 of 5 deaths, and each year, one million people experience a heart attack [1]. If a patient survives a heart attack, the heart recovers by replacing dead cardiac cells with a non-contractile scar. No innate regenerative capacity been identified for mammalian hearts [2-4], and no intervention to reconstitute myocardial function by muscle cell repopulation after injury has been approved for clinical use. Cell grafting is an attractive approach to restore cardiac function in the infarcted heart. Recent studies have identified several cell types that form living grafts in the heart, many of which have been shown to improve cardiac function [5-10]. Clinical trials with cells implanted from skeletal muscle or bone marrow are currently underway [11,12] even though major barriers for successful clinical success – graft integration and cell survival – still exist. The fibrosis that rapidly isolates the grafted cells from the host myocardium [13] is a prominent physical obstruction that can interfere with graft distribution and survival as well as electromechanical coupling. We have identified that genetic knockout of the matricellular protein, thrombospondin-2 reduces graft-related scarring. Apart from fibrosis, cell grafts face a basic challenge of survival [14]. If cells successfully engraft into the injured heart, about 90% of them do not persist three days after injection [15]. Immense increases in graft cell survival are needed if cell-based cardiac repair is to become a reality. In order to investigate potential treatments for myocardial infarction, we evaluated the regenerative capacity of mammalian cardiac tissue, identified an intervention to improve engraftment of cardiac cells and developed tools to improve the survival of embryonic stem cell derived cardiomyocytes injected into the heart.

Hopefully that is intelligible. It was written shortly before the timestamp on this entry...

Progress in Science

The end is here!

The senior graduate student in our laboratory defended her dissertation this morning. Marilyn presented her thesis about her work to control differentiation and proliferation of endothelial cells and the use of such cells in tissue engineered constructs. It is a tradition in our lab (thanks to Hans Reinecke- shown at right) to make a doktorhut that represents the research and personal interests of the graduate. You can see the work in progress below. There is a better shot of the elaborate mortarboard (with descriptions) at my flickr site.
It's great that scientists can come together and contribute to collaborative art. It also helps that there are some art majors in our lab!

Awarding the PhD is a phenomenon that varies with the individual, department and university. Generally, the candidate slaves on the research, writes a 100+ page dissertation and finally makes a streamlined oral presentation; afterwards there's a luncheon or a party. Maybe the awarding department will have a group function, and PhD students are permitted to 'walk' at commencement, but my impression is that the main celebration is the day of the defense. In this case, Marilyn finished at about the same time as the academic year concluded. Most students defend whenever they finish, which could be at any point of the year!

Congratulations Marilyn!

Science News is Slipping

I was pleased to encounter a science news story today about a research group that I know. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer published an AP story about the University of Pittsburgh's Human Movement and Balance Laboratory. It happens that the lab's director, Mark Redfern, was a professor when I attended Pitt, and taught a couple of my classes. I was even a research subject for some of their experiments.

In all, this story was a good presentation of scientific research. It included a personality profile, the implication that human subject volunteers are needed for experiments, a reference to a famous person (Kurt Vonnegut) affected by the condition (falls) being studied, some stats about the importance of falls, and an interesting question for which there is no certain answer. This last part is where the science comes in handy!

But since I know the professor featured, I sent off an email to him to find out how it was that his research made it into my local newspaper. If he responds, I will post the answers here. Any of you out there want to venture a guess about how a story from the Three Rivers made it to the Emerald City? Both funny and cynical comments will be appreciated.

---Update 5/18/07; 1900 hrs PDT---

Dr. Redfern just emailed me this description:

Hi Tom,
This is how this came about:
The School of Engineering had a two day educational program a couple of years ago for some reporters. At that time, a number of different investigators talked to them about the kinds of work we were doing. Our lab was one of those presentations. About two months ago (now two years after the presentations), I was contacted by one of the reporters, who asked what progress we had made. He decided to come out to Pitt to do an interview and write a story on the work. Nice guy and fairly sharp.
Cheers!

I will still accept comments about how this got from Pittsburgh to Seattle! Usually you only read stories from the local university...

Bioengineering ELSI

This report is a summary of one I presented to the committee tasked with identifying the future of bioengineering and by extension the UW BioE department. It has been revised for consideration by the Bioengineering Department's chair search committee. My opinions are based in large part on my experiences leading a group on campus called the Forum on Science Ethics and Policy.

I think it is important for the bioengineering department – and by extension the chair – to seek innovative ways to bridge science and engineering with medicine, ethics and social impact. From my perspective, the extent that this is even considered as an important task by the bioengineering department is small. In the current environment of ultra-competitive funding (Science, Vol 316, 20 April 2007, p. 356-361), increased occurrences of scientific misconduct (Nature, Vol 435, 9 June 2005, p.737-8), and ever-prevalent social concerns about science, I believe it important for the chair to have ideas about how to prepare students for the complexities of biomedical research and enable faculty to engage each other in meaningful conversations.

Several research strengths at the UW exist in the midst of important public discussions about science and society. Three of these are global health, stem cell research, and nanotechnology. Not only are there prominent researchers in each of these fields within or affiliated with the bioengineering department, but there are centers here focused on each of these topics. As the bridge between basic biomedical research and practical implementation, bioengineers are uniquely positioned to think critically about the needs and expenses of the technology they are building. I believe that the best bioengineers will be able to integrate needs and opinions from society into the healthcare setting. They should be, at the minimum, competent communicators about issues in science, engineering and society.

I believe strongly that a deliberate effort to incorporate issues of social responsibility and public policy into science and technology would provide the foundations to develop individuals that will lead their fields in academia, the corporate sector and the public sphere. How would this be accomplished? I have some ideas, but there are several more out there. Candidates for chair should provide innovative insights into how meaningful conversations about ethical, legal and social implications of research could be facilitated in the UW Bioengineering department. It will not be easy to incorporate concepts often relegated to liberal arts departments into a technical education, but creativity and dedication could result in significant gain. Bioengineers familiar with the global, social and political context of their work will be better prepared to tackle the current challenges in health care and lead us through the next century.

bioMEDICALengineering

This entry is modified from text I prepared for submission to the search committee for the new bioengineering department chair. For the record, I also submitted a revised form of a previously prepared recommendation concerning the role of ethical, legal and social impacts on engineering education. I am interested in hearing what anybody out there thinks of this perspective.

My comments today focus on the need for the new chair of bioengineering to lead efforts in interdisciplinary collaboration, interdepartmental partnerships and translational clinical research.

The new chair must have a vision for more and better collaborations with clinicians. Such a perspective (and the skill to form and implement a plan) will ensure that translational research is not merely entrepreneurial, or “bench to bedside,” but is “bedside to bench to bedside.” Too often, it seems that clinicians, scientists and engineers are not on the same page. This is a problem in the increasingly competitive environment for funding, where there will be good science that does not make the cut. In the context of bioengineering, the proposals that will succeed will contain good science that is problem driven. It is easy to label this as lofty talk, but I believe it is possible to fulfill these ideals if the department chair possesses some particular skills and is willing to facilitate certain kinds of interactions. Some of my ideas are listed here:

1. The chair should hold regular meetings with leaders from other departments and centers, and should make an effort to foster relationships all over campus. A familiarity with other centers’ research programs is important.
2. The chair should freely offer statements to departmental faculty that start with the phrase, “Have you spoken with...?” The chair should be in the best position to synthesize new collaborations because she or he has relationships with other campus administrators.
3. The chair could hold periodic department-wide meetings (with food) to offer a “State of the Department” address or to host feedback sessions.
4. The chair could sponsor quarterly seminars that appeal (either in one talk or in rotating talks) to clinicians, applied and basic scientists. It might be necessary to hold such seminars at a location that enables clinicians to attend. Any event that mixes clinicians and faculty would improve our current state.
5. The department should reiterate support for extending teaching and exam privileges to clinicians. Such clinicians could teach classes, serve on committees or co-advise students. More deliberate infusions of clinical experience would benefit students and faculty alike.

The bioengineering department at the UW is excellent. It is ranked highly in reputation and in revenue. This status is well-earned. I am surprised that there is not more interaction with the clinicians just down the street, particularly at the student level. Third-world diagnostics design might be more pertinent if trainees had some experience in the laboratory medicine department. Bone, heart or esophageal tissue engineers could learn a lot by interacting with orthopedic, heart or gut surgeons. I believe that a chair who has experience working in translational medicine and can communicate with engineers, basic scientists and clinicians will enable the UW to develop into the best bioengineering department in the nation.

Bioengineering in Society

This is the short version of a vision I have for the UW bioengineering department's strategic plan. I've posted the longer version in a comment.

Bioengineering is a term that includes many particular topics, but it is always associated with advances in medicine or biotechnology. Since its inception, the field has been synthetic. In the 1960’s, physicians and materials scientists collaborated to generate a solution enabling long-term kidney dialysis. The Teflon Scribner shunt led to Seattle’s prominence as renal failure treatment center and is but one example of ground-breaking interdisciplinary engineering work at the UW. Bioengineers may forget that it also set the stage for a situation in which a “God Committee” made decisions about which patients could receive the expensive dialysis procedure in a resource limited environment. In the end, federal health care policy was changed so that no renal failure patient would be refused treatment. The area of bioengineering that I believe should be tackled in the next 5-25 years is not a specific research program; it is the way that bioengineers think about their position in society.

As the bridge between basic biomedical research and practical implementation, bioengineers are uniquely positioned to think critically about the needs and expenses of the technology they are building. I believe that the best bioengineers will be able to integrate needs and opinions from society into the healthcare setting. They will be at the minimum competent communicators about issues in science, engineering and society.

My proposal is for the bioengineering department to deliberately invest in the dialogue among bioengineers about the social implications of the work they do. Several research strengths at the UW exist in the midst of important public discussions about science and society. Three of these are global health, stem cell research, and nanotechnology. Not only are there prominent researchers in each of these fields within or affiliated with the bioengineering department, but there are centers here focused on each of these topics. It is clear that faculty and students are committed to contributing to society in meaningful ways. The Grand Challenges in Global Health Care grant is an example that bioengineers at the UW are committed to the complex challenge of moving healthcare out of the resource intensive Western hospital environment into the home and beyond to developing countries.

I believe strongly that a deliberate effort to incorporate issues of social responsibility and public policy into science and technology would provide the foundations to develop individuals that will lead their fields in academia, the corporate sector and the public sphere. How would this be accomplished? I can imagine three techniques. The first is a prominent seminar series on campus focused on issues in engineering and society. Speakers must be qualified to discuss the social and political aspects of fields that they work with, not merely offer armchair analyses of public policy. Such a series could rotate between bioengineering related fields of global health nanotechnology, or stem cell science. Another technique – perhaps more effective but less prominent – at increasing knowledge and ideas about science and society is an ongoing discussion group that includes faculty and all levels of trainee. This could incorporate idealism, practicality and a breadth of ideas in a collegial environment that could engage student and teacher alike. The third, and perhaps most difficult implement would be a course focused on issues of engineering and society. Challenges here include finding the teaching resources, adding to an already heavy course load, and the artificiality of classroom discussion on social, ethical and political issues. Perhaps this would be best as a joint effort between departments. It will not be easy to incorporate concepts often relegated to liberal arts departments into a technical education, but creativity and dedication could result in significant gain. Bioengineers familiar with the global, social and political context of their work will be better prepared to tackle the current challenges in health care and lead us through the next century.

Here are some web resources for UW groups interested in science and society:

International Health Group:
http://depts.washington.edu/ihg/index.htm
Nanotechnology and Nanoscience Student Association:
http://students.washington.edu/nansa/index.html
Forum on Science Ethics and Policy:
http://www.fosep.org/