Linda Griffith, associate professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering, will present this year's Sigma Xi lecture, "Two Tales from the Tissue Engineering Front." Her talk, which is free and open to the MIT community, will be Monday, May 10 at 8:30pm in the Sala de Puerto Rico.
Professor Griffith's lecture will focus on the increasing interest in achieving regeneration of natural tissue using synthetic polymers as templates, so that the ultimate replacement of the organ or tissue function depends primarily on living cells that are transplanted with the polymer support or that are guided to grow from neighboring undamaged tissue into the support.
This presentation will contrast the development of the "human ear on the mouse" (which demonstrated the ability to grow cartilage on a synthetic matrix) with frontiers in more complex tissues, particularly regeneration of the liver. It will highlight the contributions of engineering, biology and medicine and the interface with industry.
The lecture by Professor Griffith, who is affiliated with the Center for Biomedical Engineering, will be preceded by the annual initiation dinner for newly elected members of the MIT chapter of Sigma Xi, founded in 1886 as a scientific-research counterpart to honor societies such as Phi Beta Kappa. Anyone wishing to join Professor Griffith and the new members for the dinner beforehand should contact Professor Linn Hobbs, MIT chapter president, at x3-6835 or hobbs@mit.edu. The cost is $15.
Starting this year, the annual MIT Sigma Xi lecture will highlight a rising faculty member whose research has had particularly notable impact.
A version of this article appeared in the May 5, 1999 issue of MIT Tech Talk (Volume 43, Number 29).
