To put it mildly, Dr. Lawrence Bonassar is an expert on tissue engineering; prior to working as a professor at the Meinig School of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University, he served as a faculty member of the Center For Tissue Engineering at UMass Medical School and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in orthopedic research at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Center for Biomedical Engineering at MIT. He's also on the editorial board of the journal Tissue Engineering, and head of The Bonassar Research Group. 

 

His work is focused on bringing engineered tissues to the clinic as a way of treating tissue degradation that occurs with aging and disease. The tissues he and his team are engineering are responsible for providing mobility and mechanical functions in the body and include articular, meniscus, and intervertebral disk cartilage. He explains the complexity of intervertebral disks, which are composed of a combination of different types of cartilage and an end plate, and the challenges present in creating them in the lab and ensuring that they will fit any individual patient. The engineering of these tissues is aided by imaging technology that allows Dr. Bonassar and his team determine the correct length, width, depth, and overall shape of an implant based on a patient's existing anatomy.

 

Dr. Bonassar discusses the science and technique underlying the development, implantation, and effect and function of these tissues once in the body, as well as the results they've seen in studies using these implants in Beagles with intervertebral disk disease. Tune in to hear all the details and learn about the future direction of this research. 

 

Learn more by visiting https://bonassar.research.engineering.cornell.edu/.