Donald E. Ingber | |
---|---|
Born | 1956 |
Academic background | |
Education | Yale College and Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Royal Marsden Hospital Harvard University |
Notable students | Samira Musah Javier G. Fernandez |
Donald E. Ingber (born 1956)[ citation needed ] is an American cell biologist and bioengineer. He is the founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, [1] the Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and Boston Children's Hospital,and Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. [2] He is also a member of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering,the National Academy of Engineering,the National Academy of Medicine,the National Academy of Inventors,and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ingber is a founder of the emerging fields of biologically inspired engineering. He has made pioneering contributions to numerous other disciplines including mechanobiology,cytoskeletal biology,extracellular matrix biology,integrin signaling,tumor angiogenesis,tissue engineering,nanobiotechnology,systems biology,and translational medicine. Ingber has authored more than 470 publications in scientific journals and books,and is an inventor on more than 190 patents spanning anti-cancer therapeutics,tissue engineering,medical devices,drug delivery systems,biomimetic materials,nanotherapeutics,and bioinformatics software.
Ingber has been scientific founder of five companies:Neomorphics,Inc., [3] a tissue engineering startup which led to clinical products through subsequent acquisitions (Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc.);Tensegra,Inc. (formerly known as Molecular Geodesics,Inc.,) [4] which 3D-printed medical devices;and most recently,Emulate,Inc., [5] which formed to commercialize human "organs-on-chips" that accelerate drug development,detect toxicities and advance personalized medicine by replacing animal testing;Boa Biomedical,Inc. (originally known as Opsonix,Inc.), [6] which aims to reduce deaths due to sepsis and blood infections by removing pathogens from the blood;and FreeFlow Medical Devices,LLC,which develops special coatings for medical devices to eliminate the formation of blood clots and biofilms on materials.
Ingber grew up in East Meadow,New York. [7] He received a combined B.A./M.A. in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale College and Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1977;an M.Phil. in cell biology from Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1981;and a combined M.D./Ph.D. from Yale School of Medicine and Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in 1984.[ citation needed ] At Yale,he carried out undergraduate research on DNA repair with Paul Howard-Flanders, [8] and on cancer metastasis with Alan Sartorelli.
Ingber worked on development of cancer therapeutics[ citation needed ] with Kenneth Harrap at the Royal Cancer Hospital/Royal Marsden Hospital in England,with support from a Bates Traveling Fellowship. He carried out his Ph.D. dissertation research under the direction of Dr. James Jamieson in the department of cell biology, [9] and his advisory committee included George Palade,Elizabeth Hay and Joseph Madri. From 1984 to 1986 he completed his training as an Anna Fuller Postdoctoral Fellow [10] under the mentorship of Dr. Judah Folkman in the Surgical Research Laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. [11] [12]
This section needs to be updated.(July 2020) |
Ingber is best known for his discovery of the role mechanical forces play in developmental control and in cancer formation, and for his application of these principles to develop bioinspired medical devices, nanotechnologies, and therapeutics. Ingber's early scientific work led to the discovery that tensegrity architecture [16] - first described by the architect Buckminster Fuller and the sculptor Kenneth Snelson - is a fundamental design principle that governs how living systems are structured, from individual molecules and cells to whole tissues, organs and organisms. [17]
Ingber's work on tensegrity led him to propose that mechanical forces play as important a role in biological control as chemicals and genes do, [18] and to investigate the molecular mechanism by which cells convert mechanical signals into changes in intracellular biochemistry and gene expression, a process known as "mechanotransduction." [19] Ingber determined that living cells use tensegrity architecture to stabilize their shape and cytoskeleton, that cellular integrins function as mechanosensors on the cell surface, and that cytoskeletal tension (or "prestress," which is central to the stability of tensegrity structures) is a fundamental regulator of many cellular responses to mechanical cues. [20] Ingber's tensegrity theory also led to the prediction in the early 1980s that changes in extracellular matrix structure and mechanics play a fundamental role in tissue and organ development, and that deregulation of this form of developmental control can promote cancer formation. [21]
Ingber's contributions in translational medicine include discovery of one of the first angiogenesis inhibitor compounds (TNP-470) [22] to enter clinical trials for cancer, creation of tissue engineering scaffolds that led to clinical products, development of a dialysis-like blood cleansing device for treatment of blood stream infections that is moving towards clinical testing, [23] [24] creation of a mechanically-activated nanotechnology for targeting clot-busting drugs to sites of vascular occlusion, [25] and co-development of a new surface coating based on Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surfaces (SLIPS) for medical devices and implants that could eliminate the conventional dependency on anticoagulant drugs that pose life-threatening side-effect risks. [26]
One of his more recent innovations is the creation of tiny, complex, three-dimensional models of living human organs, known as "organs-on-chips" (Organ Chips), which mimic complicated human organ functions in vitro as a way to potentially replace traditional animal-based methods for testing of drugs and toxins. [27] The first human Organ Chip, a human Lung Chip, was reported in Science in 2010. [28] Created using microchip manufacturing methods[ citation needed ], the Lung Chip is a complex three-dimensional model of a breathing lung that incorporates living human lung alveolar epithelial cells interfaced with endothelial cells within microfluidic channels cast in silicone rubber, which recapitulate structure and function of the tissue-vasculature interface of lung alveolus (air sacs). In 2012, Ingber and his team demonstrated in a study in Science Translational Medicine the ability to mimic a complex human disease on the Lung Chip — specifically pulmonary edema, known commonly as “fluid on the lungs” — and to identify new therapeutics using this model. [29] As an alternative to animal studies, Organ Chips could be used to study the safety and efficacy of new drugs, accelerating the introduction of new drugs to market while significantly lowering research costs. [30] Ingber's group has since expanded this technology to develop other model organs, including the intestine, [31] kidney, [32] bone marrow, [33] blood-brain barrier, [34] and liver. In 2012, Ingber's team was awarded a DARPA contract to string together multiple Organ Chips to build an automated human body-on-chips that will recapitulate whole-body physiology. [35] This system could be used in combination with computational modeling to rapidly assess responses to new drug candidates, providing critical information on their safety, efficacy, and pharmacokinetics. [36]
Other new technologies from Ingber's lab include development of a fully biodegradable plastic alternative inspired by natural cuticle material found in shrimp shells and insect exoskeletons, known as “Shrilk”; [37] a mechanically activated nanotherapeutic that selectively directs clot-busting drugs to sites of vascular occlusion while minimizing unintended bleeding; [38] an siRNA nanoparticle therapy that prevents breast cancer progression; [39] a dialysis-like sepsis device that cleanses blood of all infectious pathogens, fungi and toxins without requiring prior identification; [40] a surface coating for medical materials and devices that prevents clot formation and bacteria accumulation that reduces the need for use of conventional anticoagulant drugs that frequently result in life-threatening side effects, [26] and a computational approach to diagnostics and therapeutics that incorporates both animation and molecular modeling software to virtually develop and test potential drugs designed to fit precisely into their targets’ molecular structures. [41]
Earlier in his career, Ingber helped to bridge Harvard University, its affiliated hospitals, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) through his involvement in the Center for Integration in Medicine and Innovative Technology, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, and Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center[ citation needed ]. He also has been a member[ citation needed ] of the Center for Nanoscale Systems and the Materials Research Science and Engineering Center at Harvard, as well as the MIT Center for Bioengineering.
In 2009, Ingber was named Founding Director[ citation needed ] of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, which was launched with a $125 million gift— which at the time was the largest philanthropic gift in Harvard's history—from Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss. The Wyss Institute was founded to enable high-risk research and disruptive innovation, and to catalyze the field of biologically inspired engineering in which newly uncovered biological design principles are leveraged to develop new engineering innovations in the form of bioinspired materials and devices for medicine, industry, and the environment. [42] The Institute is a partnership[ citation needed ] among Harvard University, its major affiliated hospitals (Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital), Boston University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Tufts University, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and University of Zurich.
Ingber is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences [ citation needed ]. He served as a member of the Space Studies Board [43] of the U.S. National Research Council (NRC), which advises the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and National Institute of Medicine, and he chaired its Committee on Space Biology and Medicine. He has been an external reviewer of multiple NRC reports, including “Plan for the International Space Station,” “Future Biotechnology Research on the International Space Station,” [44] "Assessment of Directions in Microgravity and Physical Sciences Research at NASA", [45] and “The Astrophysical Context of Life.” [46]
Ingber also has served as a consultant[ citation needed ] to numerous companies in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and cosmetics industries, including Merck, Roche, Astrazeneca, Biogen, Chanel, and L’Oreal, among others. He currently chairs[ citation needed ] the Scientific Advisory Boards of Emulate, Inc. and Boa Biomedical, Inc.
He is an advisory board member for Integrative Biology . [47]
Ingber has received numerous awards and distinctions, including:
Ingber has also been named to multiple Who's Who lists for his diverse contributions including: Science and Engineering (1991), America (1994), the World (1997), Medicine and Healthcare (1999), Business Leaders and Professionals—Honors Edition (2007), and was honored with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award in 2018. [67]
Ingber collaborates internationally with artists, architects, and designers, as well as scientists, physicians, engineers, and the public. Examples of his involvement in the art/design community include:
Biomedical engineering (BME) or medical engineering is the application of engineering principles and design concepts to medicine and biology for healthcare applications. BME is also traditionally logical sciences to advance health care treatment, including diagnosis, monitoring, and therapy. Also included under the scope of a biomedical engineer is the management of current medical equipment in hospitals while adhering to relevant industry standards. This involves procurement, routine testing, preventive maintenance, and making equipment recommendations, a role also known as a Biomedical Equipment Technician (BMET) or as a clinical engineer.
Nanomedicine is the medical application of nanotechnology. Nanomedicine ranges from the medical applications of nanomaterials and biological devices, to nanoelectronic biosensors, and even possible future applications of molecular nanotechnology such as biological machines. Current problems for nanomedicine involve understanding the issues related to toxicity and environmental impact of nanoscale materials.
Emulate, Inc. (Emulate) is a biotechnology company that commercialized Organs-on-Chips technology—a human cell-based technology that recreates organ-level function to model organs in healthy and diseased states. The technology has applications in pharmaceutical research, product development, testing how different medicines, chemicals, and foods affect human health. Emulate has also worked with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on a precision medicine initiative that uses Organs-on-Chips technology in the clinical setting. This initiative is designed to provide clinicians with better data about how an individual patient may respond to treatment. The company also signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to advance and qualify its Human Emulation System to meet regulatory evaluation for product testing.
Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Biological engineering or bioengineering is the application of principles of biology and the tools of engineering to create usable, tangible, economically viable products. Biological engineering employs knowledge and expertise from a number of pure and applied sciences, such as mass and heat transfer, kinetics, biocatalysts, biomechanics, bioinformatics, separation and purification processes, bioreactor design, surface science, fluid mechanics, thermodynamics, and polymer science. It is used in the design of medical devices, diagnostic equipment, biocompatible materials, renewable energy, ecological engineering, agricultural engineering, process engineering and catalysis, and other areas that improve the living standards of societies.
Mehmet Toner is a Turkish biomedical engineer. He is currently the Helen Andrus Benedict Professor of Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School, with a joint appointment as professor at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST).
Ali Khademhosseini is an Iranian-born Canadian-American engineer. He is the CEO of the Terasaki Institute, non-profit research organization in Los Angeles, and Omeat Inc., a cultivated-meat startup. Before taking his current CEO roles, he spent one year at Amazon Inc. Prior to that he was the Levi Knight chair and professor at the University of California-Los Angeles where he held a multi-departmental professorship in Bioengineering, Radiology, Chemical, and Biomolecular Engineering as well as the Director of Center for Minimally Invasive Therapeutics (C-MIT). From 2005 to 2017, he was a professor at Harvard Medical School, and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.
Translational research is research aimed at translating (converting) results in basic research into results that directly benefit humans. The term is used in science and technology, especially in biology and medical science. As such, translational research forms a subset of applied research.
The American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) is a non-profit organization founded in 1991, and headquartered in Washington, D.C. It represents 50,000 medical and biomedical engineers, and academic institutions, private industry, and professional engineering societies.
Sangeeta N. Bhatia is an American biological engineer and the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Bhatia's research investigates applications of micro- and nano-technology for tissue repair and regeneration. She applies ideas from computer technology and engineering to the design of miniaturized biomedical tools for the study and treatment of diseases, in particular liver disease, hepatitis, malaria and cancer.
David James Mooney is Robert P. Pinkas Family Professor of Bioengineering at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He is also a founding core faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.
The lung-on-a-chip is an organ-on-a-chip device modelling a living, breathing human lung on a microchip. The lung-on-a-chip places two layers of living tissues—the lining of the lung's air sacs and the blood vessels that surround them—across a porous, flexible boundary. Air is delivered to the lung lining cells, a rich culture medium flows in the capillary channel to mimic blood, and cyclic mechanical stretching is generated by a vacuum applied to the chambers adjacent to the cell culture channels to mimic breathing. The device is made using human lung and blood vessel cells and it can predict absorption of airborne nanoparticles and mimic the inflammatory response triggered by microbial pathogens. It can be used to test the effects of environmental toxins, absorption of aerosolized therapeutics, and the safety and efficacy of new drugs. It is expected to become an alternative to animal testing.
Samir Mitragotri is an Indian American professor at Harvard University, an inventor, an entrepreneur, and a researcher in the fields of drug delivery and biomaterials. He is currently the Hiller Professor of Bioengineering and Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Prior to 2017, he was the Duncan and Suzanne Mellichamp Chair Professor at University of California, Santa Barbara.
An organ-on-a-chip (OOC) is a multi-channel 3-D microfluidic cell culture, integrated circuit (chip) that simulates the activities, mechanics and physiological response of an entire organ or an organ system. It constitutes the subject matter of significant biomedical engineering research, more precisely in bio-MEMS. The convergence of labs-on-chips (LOCs) and cell biology has permitted the study of human physiology in an organ-specific context. By acting as a more sophisticated in vitro approximation of complex tissues than standard cell culture, they provide the potential as an alternative to animal models for drug development and toxin testing.
Elazer R. Edelman is an American engineer, scientist and cardiologist. He is the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH), and a practicing cardiologist at BWH. He is the director of MIT's Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES), the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center, and the MIT Clinical Research Center. He is also the Program Director of the MIT Graduate Education in Medical Sciences program within the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.
Alireza Mashaghi is a physician-scientist and biophysicist at Leiden University. He is known for his contributions to single-molecule analysis of chaperone assisted protein folding, molecular topology and medical systems biophysics and bioengineering. He is a leading advocate for interdisciplinary research and education in medicine and pharmaceutical sciences.
Christopher S. Chen, born in 1968, is an American biological engineer. He is the William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Boston University and member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University in Boston.
Samira Musah is an American biomedical engineer and professor at the Duke University Pratt School of Engineering. She is known for her work in biomimetic systems, in particular for her work in developing an organ-on-a-chip model of the kidney glomerulus during her postdoctoral fellowship.
The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering is a cross-disciplinary research institute at Harvard University focused on bridging the gap between academia and industry by drawing inspiration from nature's design principles to solve challenges in health care and the environment. It is focused on the field of biologically inspired engineering to be distinct from bioengineering and biomedical engineering. The institute also has a focus on applications, intellectual property generation, and commercialization.
Catherine M. Klapperich is an American biomedical engineer noted for her research on diagnostics and precision medicine. She is currently professor of biomedical engineering at Boston University, with additional appointments in materials science & engineering and mechanical engineering. Klapperich serves as the director of research for the DAMP Laboratory at BU. Klapperich was previously the director of the NIH NIBIB Center for Future Technologies in Cancer Care as part of the Point-of Care-Research Technologies Network.