Event
BIOE Seminar: Biomaterials for Tissue Sealing and Wound Repair
Friday, March 31, 2023
9:00 a.m.-10:00 a.m.
A. James Clark Hall, Room #2121
Dr. Joe Huang
hchuang@umd.edu
Kaushal Rege
Arizona State University
Fulton Faculty Impact Professor
School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy
Biomaterials for Tissue Sealing and Wound Repair
Abstract
Complications associated with ineffective tissue repair in slow or non-healing wounds, including diabetic wounds, cost the US healthcare system ~$20 billion / year and amount to ~5% of the total cost of Medicare and Medicaid. In cases of surgical closure, lack of immediate tissue approximation, high potential for scarring, including in visible areas of the body, susceptibility to infection, and long procedure times necessitate new approaches for tissue repair especially for unmet needs where current approaches are suboptimal in performance. Light-activated tissue sealing is an emerging strategy that facilitates rapid, liquid-tight approximation of ruptured tissues, but the lack of effective biomaterials compromises efficacy. I will discuss our advances in the generation, characterization, evaluation, and of laser-activated sealants (LASEs), and their use in bioactives delivery, for the rapid sealing and repair of incisional wounds and infection control, including in diabetic and obese hosts. In addition to acute trauma, slow-healing and chronic wounds, including in diabetic and obese patients, are a significant cause for morbidity. Advanced treatments, including biologics, have shown some promise but have largely not succeeded in cases of intractable wound pathologies. I will describe our new findings on the delivery of immunomodulating bioactive molecules and polypeptide biomaterials in combination with growth factor nanoparticles with an eye towards developing a temporal delivery strategy for specifically modulating individual stages of tissue repair, leading to accelerated healing, including in diabetic and obese mice. Taken together, our studies demonstrate that biomaterials, in concert with delivery of light
and bioactive molecules, show strong promise for accelerating wound healing as well as efficacious tissue sealing and repair.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Kaushal Rege is Fulton Faculty Impact Professor in the School for Engineering of Matter, Transport, and Energy, Director, Center for Biomaterials Innovation and Tranlation, Biodesign Institute and Chair of the Biological Design Graduate Program at Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe, Arizona. Research in Dr. Rege’s group focuses on molecular and nanoscale technologies for tissue repair. Dr. Rege is an inventor on several patents and has published over 100 papers in peer reviewed journals in addition to book chapters. Dr. Rege serves as Associate Editor of the journals, Bioengineering and Translational Medicine (Wiley) and NanoLIFE, and has served as Guest Member of the Editorial Board for Annual Reviews in Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Rege was elected to the college of fellows of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE) in 2017. He was awarded a New Investigator Award from the American Society for Photobiology, a Young Investigator Award from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), and a Fulton Exemplar Faculty Award from ASU. Dr. Rege will also serve as co-chair of the ECI Meeting on Nanotechnology in Medicine in 2024. Dr. Rege is an inventor on several patents and patent applications, and has is co-founder of Synergyan, LLC and Endotat Biotechnologies, LLC. Dr. Rege has mentored over 50 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and his mentees have gone on to pursue successful careers in academia and industry.