Gabor Forgacs
George H. Vineyard Professor of Biophysics,
University of Missouri
Executive and Scientific Director of the Shipley Innovation Center, Clarkson University
Wednesday, April 13th
7:00 p.m. ~ Bloomer Auditorium

"Tissue Engineering: the key to eternal life?"

Scientists must adapt to the ongoing global transformation in the perception of the public about science. These changes require that research supported by taxpayers lead to tangible economic gains, a notion practically non-existent in the past. To be successful in this process necessitates coordination between science, business and finance. The talk will illustrate this process through my own personal experience: how from brutally theoretical physics I arrived at being the scientific founder of a biotech company that “prints organ modules”. Specifically, I will discuss what is the science underlying this novel tissue engineering technology, which relies on some of the same self-organizing principles used by the embryo to develop organs.  I will then demonstrate the approach by specific examples of organ building. Tissue and organ engineers hope that due to their efforts in the not too distant future, you will just walk into a specialized clinic, shed your dysfunctional kidney or liver and walk out with a made-to-measure new one. Sounds fiction? Maybe so, but maybe not.

Gabor Forgacs is George H. Vineyard Professor of Biophysics at University of Missouri and the Executive and Scientific Director of the Shipley Innovation Center at Clarkson University. He received his PhD in theoretical physics from the Roland Eotvos University, Budapest, Hungary. He has made significant contributions to topics in theoretical physics, such as phase transitions or the movement of electrons in disordered materials. After having transformed himself into a biological physicist, his research interest shifted to the physical mechanisms that act in early embryonic development. He is the co-author of the celebrated book in the field, "Biological Physics of the Developing Embryo" (Cambridge University Press, 2005). At present he is applying these mechanisms to building living structures of prescribed shape by bioprinting.

INTERESTED IN A CLASS VISIT? If you have a class scheduled for Wednesday, April 13th or the morning of Thursday, April 14th and you'd like Dr. Forgacs to stop by, email Karin Blackburn as soon as possible!