X-Message-Number: 11316
Date: Wed, 24 Feb 1999 11:18:22 PST
From: "Ralph C. Merkle" <>
Subject: Fwd: PARC Forum, 2/25 -- Matt Croughan, "Tissue Engineering"

>XEROX PARC FORUM
>Thursday, February 25
>4:00 - 5:00 p.m.
>
>MATT CROUGHAN
>will talk about
>"Tissue Engineering: Replacement Body Parts, Replacements for Animal Testing"
>
>Tissue engineering has the potential to address many unmet medical and
>testing needs, some with markets in excess of a billion dollars per year.
>The first generation, tissue-engineered products are skin and cartilage.
>For these products, cells are seeded onto a simple biodegradable scaffold,
>made from woven material, and grown in a bioreactor to form a solid piece
>of tissue.  Engineered skin tissue provides dramatic benefits for the
>treatment of burn victims and diabetic foot ulcers.  Engineered cartilage
>tissue is being developed for the treatment of knee cartilage injuries.
>
>There are many challenges to grow tissue-engineered organs that are full of
>cells and blood vessels, such as the liver.  It will be many years before
>engineered, vascular organs, such as the liver, are available commercially
>for transplantation.  However, in the meantime, engineered liver tissue is
>being developed as an alternative to animals for toxicology and metabolism
>testing of chemical compounds.  Someday, trays full of microscale organs
>will replace rooms full of animals.
>
>Bio:
>Matt has a B.S. from U.C. Berkeley and a Ph.D from M.I.T., both in chemical
>engineering.  He worked at Genentech for ten years and gained substantial
>expertise in the growth of animal cells for commercial production of
>pharmaceutical proteins.  Matt led the development of the commercial cell
>culture process for the production of Pulmozymetm and an upgrade of the
>commercial cell culture process for the production of Activasetm.  He
>finished his career at Genentech as the chief scientist for the Vacaville
>plant, the world's largest and most automated cell culture manufacturing
>plant.
>
>Matt left Genentech in early 1998 to start a new biotechnology company in
>the tissue engineering field.  In collaboration with professors at MIT,
>Harvard, and Cornell, they are developing engineered, microscale organs for
>partial replacement of animal testing.  While the technology is in
>development at the universities, Matt consults part-time for various
>biotechnology companies and serves as the Industrial Liaison for the
>Biotechnology Process Engineering Center at MIT.
>
>This Forum is OPEN to the public.
>
>Refreshments will be served from 3:45 to 4:00.
>
>The George Pake Auditorium is located at Xerox PARC,
>3333 Coyote Hill Road in Palo Alto, off of Page Mill Road.
>>From Page Mill Road, turn South on Foothill Expressway, then right on
>Hillview, and take the second entrance to the right.
>Park in the large parking lot and enter the auditorium at the upper level
>of the building.  The auditorium is located to the left of and down the
>stairs from the main entrance.
>
>
>There is a map to PARC at:
>http://www.parc.xerox.com/images/maptoparc.gif.
>
>Forum Coordinator:
>  Ruth Rosenholtz ()
>  Phone: 650 812-4390
>
>PARC Forum Web addresses:
>  External: http://www.parc.xerox.com/forum
>  Internal: http://parcweb.parc.xerox.com/events/forum
>

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