Seminar on Biomaterials for Cell Transportation and Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Nerve Injury

Date:  Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Time: 10 am to 11 am
Location: Terrence Donnelly Centre, 160 College Street, Red Seminar Room
Refreshments: Snacks and drinks will be provided

Professor Molly Shoichet (ChemE, IBBME) will host a seminar by Dr. Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert of Washington University about Biomaterials for Cell Transportation and Drug Delivery for the Treatment of Nerve Injury.

Topic: Sakiyama-Elbert will discuss her work on biomaterials that promote cell survival and/or differentiation after transplantation for the treatment of nerve injury.

Recently, her lab developed heparin-binding affinity-based drug delivery systems that sequester growth factors within scaffolds and release growth factors in response to cell in-growth during tissue regeneration. She and her team have combined these scaffolds with embryonic stem cell-derived neural progenitor cells and shown that the combination of fibrin scaffolds and growth factor delivery can enhance cell survival and differentiation of neural progenitor cells transplanted after spinal cord injury. Furthermore, they demonstrated this approach enhanced functional recovery after spinal cord injury, as assessed by gridwalk. In the end, it was found that fibrin scaffold containing drug delivery system can serve as a platform for cell transplantation for many applications in regenerative medicine by tailoring the choice of growth factors and the cell type used.

Shelly Sakiyama‐Elbert received her Bachelor's degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Chemical Engineering and Biology. She received her Master's and PhD degrees from California Institute of Technology in Chemical Engineering. She joined the faculty at Washington University in Biomedical Engineering in 2000, where she is currently an Associate Professor on the Joseph and Florence Farrow Endowment and Director of Graduate Studies.