Yale Hosts Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium

01/19/2018

What kind of biomaterials would promote the growth of cardiac tissue? How do you make cells properly mature outside the body in a matter of weeks?

Discussions on these and other questions were considered last week, as Yale hosted the New England Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering Symposium. Organized by Stuart Campbell, associate professor of biomedical engineering & cellular and molecular physiology, the event was attended by 40 researchers from Yale, Tufts University, University, Brown University and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Campbell said he and another tissue engineering researcher at Brown had the idea for a symposium.

“We realized there were a lot of junior professors in the region doing work in the area of cardiovascular tissue engineering,” he said.

The first symposium, which takes place twice a year, was held six months ago at Brown. In many fields, conferences and symposia take place annually or at longer intervals. Campbell, though, said the proximity of the participating researchers, and the very quick pace of change in the still new field of tissue engineering warranted a more frequent schedule.

“All of us are watching what’s coming out in the field,” he said. “There’s a sort of sense that things are moving pretty rapidly.”

The frequency also adds to the informal nature of the event, which emphasizes practical knowledge-sharing.

"That allows us to get together and talk about technical challenges, rather than trying to present our most polished, finished work,” he said. “If you get up at a national conference, you don’t want to say ‘You know, we tried this, but it didn’t really work…’” But at this meeting, we’ll share that kind of information, and someone will say ‘Well, we’ve had really good luck doing this…”

Each of the represented labs at the symposium gave presentations at the daylong event. Keynote speaker Laura Niklason, professor of anesthesiology & biomedical engineering, gave a talk on her research.

“That was really great and inspiring,” Campbell said. “Everyone was excited to see someone who’s such a pioneer and who has pushed so close to the realization of clinically available engineered vascular grafts.”