Abstract:
Tissue engineering is an emerging field with the aim of producing ‘artificial’ tissue or organ substitutes that can grow with patients, ultimately providing a permanent solution to damaged tissues or organs. In tissue engineering, tissue scaffolds play a crucial role. A tissue scaffold is a three-dimensional (3D) structure made from biomaterials with a highly interconnected pore network or microstructure that is used to facilitate cell growth and transport of nutrients and wastes while degrading gradually itself. Fabrication of scaffolds has proven to be a challenging task. One important barrier is the inability to fabricate scaffolds with a microstructure and spatially-controlled distribution of cells that mimics the structure and cell organization in native tissues, and with both mechanical and biological properties appropriate for tissue engineering applications. Recently, the speaker’s research group has been very active to carry on research on bio-fabrication scaffolds for various tissue engineering applications, including the repair peripheral nerve injuries, spinal cord injuries, osteoarthritis, myocardial infarction, and/or stroke. In this presentation, the speaker will report their recent work and achievements, and discuss the challenges and the opportunities in this emerging field. The promising of the use synchrotron–based imaging to track scaffold placement and success in living tissue will also be discussed.
 
Biosketch:
Dr. Daniel Chen is currently a Professor with the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Biomedical Engineering, both at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada. He is also the leader of Tissue Engineering Research Group that consists of a number of researchers spanning both engineering and health sciences. He is the recipient of the New Research Award 2012 of the University of Saskatchewan, recognizing his significant contributions to scholarship through creation, expansion, and critique of knowledge in the area he is specialized. His research interests mainly include Bio-fabrication and Tissue Engineering Scaffolds and Precision Fluid Manipulation. His research has been supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).