Minisymposium “Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering”
Artificial Tissue in the Spotlight with Humboldt Research Award Winner Milica Radisic
2024/06/25
The LOEWE Research Cluster FLOW FOR LIFE is hosting the minisymposium “Biomaterials & Tissue Engineering” on Wednesday, July 3, 2024, from 1:30 PM to 6:00 PM at the Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberghaus. The event will feature Humboldt Research Award winner Milica Radisic from the University of Toronto. Other speakers include Wolfram Zimmermann from the University of Göttingen, Katharina Landfester from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, and Aranzazu del Campo from the Leibniz Institute for New Materials and the Saarland University.
Milica Radisic , a professor at the University of Toronto and a senior scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute, is an international leader in the fields of cardiac tissue engineering and organ-on-a-chip technology. She uses isolated heart cells in combination with biomaterial scaffolds and bioreactors to obtain functional heart tissue for disease modeling, drug development, and regenerative medicine.
As part of her Humboldt Research Award, she will conduct research on the development of vascularized human tissue models with scientists of the LOEWE Research Cluster “FLOW FOR LIFE” in Darmstadt . She was nominated for the research award by Professor Ulrike Nuber from the Department of Biology at TU Darmstadt.
As part of her Humboldt Research Award, she will conduct research on the development of vascularized human tissue models with scientists of the LOEWE Research Cluster “FLOW FOR LIFE” in Darmstadt . She was nominated for the research award by Professor Ulrike Nuber from the Department of Biology at TU Darmstadt.
Clusterproject „CoM2Life“
The use of biomaterials to specifically influence cells in natural and lab-generated tissues is also the focus of the cluster project “CoM2Life”, which has been invited to submit a full proposal for the Excellence Cluster funding line as part of the Federal and State Excellence Strategy .
“CoM2Life” aims to develop a fundamentally new generation of soft biomaterials that are able to enter into permanent and reciprocal communication with biological systems such as cells and tissues by integrating principles of living systems. The researchers are following an approach that combines the chemistry-centered design of biomaterials with the design of regulatory circuits in synthetic biology. This enables the development of intelligent biomaterials that are capable of selectively detecting signals from their environment, processing them internally and then controlling actuators and effectors as required.
Overall, TU Darmstadt is represented with three project outlines in the Excellence Strategy competition. In addition to CoM2Life on communicating biomaterials, these are “Reasonable Artificial Intelligence” (RAI) on artificial intelligence and “The Adaptive Mind” (TAM) in the field of cognitive sciences.
