Gabor Forgacs

A List
4/4/11

St. Lawrence Hosts Scientist's Talk On Tissue Engineering

CANTON - "Tissue Engineering: The Key to Eternal Life?" is the topic of a talk by Gabor Forgacs, George H. Vineyard Professor of Biophysics at the University of Missouri and executive and scientific director of the Shipley Innovation Center at Clarkson University, on Wednesday, April 13, at 7 p.m. in Bloomer Auditorium, Brown Hall, St. Lawrence University.

The event, part of the University's Contemporary Issues Forum, is open to the public, free of charge.

Forgacs states, "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. Organ engineers hope that, due to their efforts, in the not-too-distant future, you will be able to walk into a specialized clinic, shed your dysfunctional kidney or liver and walk out with a made-to-measure new one. Sounds like fiction? Maybe so, but maybe not."

Forgacs 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).

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