Ronke Olabisi

Last updated
Ronke Olabisi
Born
Ronke Mojoyinola Olabisi

(1976-06-26) June 26, 1976 (age 47)
Education Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering
Master's in Aerospace Engineering
Master's in Mechanical Engineering
Bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering
Alma mater University of Wisconsin-Madison
University of Michigan
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Awards National Space Biomedical Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship [ when? ]
National Science Foundation CAREER Award [ when? ]
Johnson & Johnson Women in STEM2D Scholars Award [ when? ]
Scientific career
Fields Tissue engineering
Wound healing
Regenerative medicine [1]
Institutions Rutgers University
UC Irvine
Website www.olabisilab.com

Ronke Mojoyinola Olabisi (born 26 June 1976) is an associate professor of biomedical engineering at University of California, Irvine. She works on speciality of bone and human tissue. [1] She is working with Mae Jemison on 100 Year Starship, an interdisciplinary initiative that is exploring the possibility of human interstellar travel.

Contents

Early life and education

Olabisi is from Plainfield, New Jersey. She grew up wanting to be an astronaut. [2] Her mentors have been her graduate school and postdoctoral advisors, including Profs. John Taylor, Ray Vanderby, Jr, and Jennifer L. West, as well as individuals not directly involved in her training, such as Mae Jemison. [2] [3] She studied aerospace engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She moved to the University of Michigan for her Masters research. She completed her doctoral work at University of Wisconsin–Madison. [4] She was awarded the National Science Foundation GSK-12 Award. [5]

Research and career

Olabisi was a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University, where she was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, and City of Hope National Medical Center. [5] There, she investigated how mother-of-pearl (nacre) gets its natural strength and resilience with the hope to recreate it synthetically, by patterning hydrogels with nacre proteins. [6]

Olabisi's first faculty position was at Rutgers University; today she is an assistant professor at UC Irvine. [7] Her research looks to make wounds heal faster using cell therapy, work that could revolutionize the recovery time of people who require plastic surgery. [8] [9] By combining hydrogels with proteins, cellular repair can occur faster. She is an inventor on a patent describing growing bone using microencapsulated cells releasing bone morphogenetic proteins. [10] She found that she could entrap certain cells into hydrogels to deliver the hormone insulin, which helps to heal diabetic wounds. [11] In 2018 she became a National Science Foundation CAREER Award grant holder, exploring chronic wounds. [12] She is working on combining mesenchymal stem cells and insulin producing cells for dual cell therapies. [12]

She has studied the way that the body adapts to the space environment, [13] in order to identify mechanisms that protect astronauts from the effects of microgravity, by using tissue engineering approaches to stimulate growth, regeneration, and repair. [14]

Public engagement

Olabisi works with Mae Jemison on the grant project 100 Year Starship, an interdisciplinary initiative that is exploring the technologies necessary to achieve interstellar travel, with the goal that all such technologies would improve life on Earth (e.g., better power sources, clean energy, clothing that doesn't need washing). [15] She presented the program and how it intersected with her work at the European Parliament in 2013. [16] In 2016, she featured in a Vanity Fair and IBM collaboration celebrating women in science. [15] In 2019, she was interviewed by Forbes. [17]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tissue engineering</span> Biomedical engineering discipline

Tissue engineering is a biomedical engineering discipline that uses a combination of cells, engineering, materials methods, and suitable biochemical and physicochemical factors to restore, maintain, improve, or replace different types of biological tissues. Tissue engineering often involves the use of cells placed on tissue scaffolds in the formation of new viable tissue for a medical purpose but is not limited to applications involving cells and tissue scaffolds. While it was once categorized as a sub-field of biomaterials, having grown in scope and importance it can be considered as a field of its own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wound healing</span> Series of events that restore integrity to damaged tissue after an injury

Wound healing refers to a living organism's replacement of destroyed or damaged tissue by newly produced tissue.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bowed tendon</span>

Tendinitis/tendonitis is inflammation of a tendon, often involving torn collagen fibers. A bowed tendon is a horseman's term for a tendon after a horse has sustained an injury that causes swelling in one or more tendons creating a "bowed" appearance.

Cardiomyoplasty is a surgical procedure in which healthy muscle from another part of the body is wrapped around the heart to provide support for the failing heart. Most often the latissimus dorsi muscle is used for this purpose. A special pacemaker is implanted to make the skeletal muscle contract. If cardiomyoplasty is successful and increased cardiac output is achieved, it usually acts as a bridging therapy, giving time for damaged myocardium to be treated in other ways, such as remodeling by cellular therapies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Heber-Katz</span>

Ellen Heber-Katz is an American immunologist and regeneration biologist who is a professor at Lankenau Institute for Medical Research (LIMR). She discovered that the Murphy Roths Large (MRL) mouse strain can regenerate wounds without scarring, and can fully restore damaged tissues. Her work on regeneration has been extended into National Cancer Institute (NCI)-funded studies of novel aspects of breast cancer causation. Her research interests include immunology, regenerative medicine and cancer.

A fibrin scaffold is a network of protein that holds together and supports a variety of living tissues. It is produced naturally by the body after injury, but also can be engineered as a tissue substitute to speed healing. The scaffold consists of naturally occurring biomaterials composed of a cross-linked fibrin network and has a broad use in biomedical applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mineralized tissues</span> Biological tissues incorporating minerals

Mineralized tissues are biological tissues that incorporate minerals into soft matrices. Typically these tissues form a protective shield or structural support. Bone, mollusc shells, deep sea sponge Euplectella species, radiolarians, diatoms, antler bone, tendon, cartilage, tooth enamel and dentin are some examples of mineralized tissues.

Kristi S. Anseth is the Tisone Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering, an Associate Professor of Surgery, and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her main research interests are the design of synthetic biomaterials using hydrogels, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine.

Molly S. Shoichet, is a Canadian science professor, specializing in chemistry, biomaterials and biomedical engineering. She was Ontario's first Chief Scientist. Shoichet is a biomedical engineer known for her work in tissue engineering, and is the only person to be a fellow of the three National Academies in Canada.

Valerie Horsley is an American cell and developmental biologist. She currently works as an associate professor at Yale University, where she has extensively researched the growth, restoration, and maintenance of skin cells. She is a currently a member of the Yale Cancer Center and Yale Stem Cell Center. She received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2012 and in 2013 she was the recipient of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award.

Hydrogels are three-dimensional networks consisting of chemically or physically cross-linked hydrophilic polymers. The insoluble hydrophilic structures absorb polar wound exudates and allow oxygen diffusion at the wound bed to accelerate healing. Hydrogel dressings can be designed to prevent bacterial infection, retain moisture, promote optimum adhesion to tissues, and satisfy the basic requirements of biocompatibility. Hydrogel dressings can also be designed to respond to changes in the microenvironment at the wound bed. Hydrogel dressings should promote an appropriate microenvironment for angiogenesis, recruitment of fibroblasts, and cellular proliferation.

Artificial cartilage is a synthetic material made of hydrogels or polymers that aims to mimic the functional properties of natural cartilage in the human body. Tissue engineering principles are used in order to create a non-degradable and biocompatible material that can replace cartilage. While creating a useful synthetic cartilage material, certain challenges need to be overcome. First, cartilage is an avascular structure in the body and therefore does not repair itself. This creates issues in regeneration of the tissue. Synthetic cartilage also needs to be stably attached to its underlying surface i.e. the bone. Lastly, in the case of creating synthetic cartilage to be used in joint spaces, high mechanical strength under compression needs to be an intrinsic property of the material.

Julie Elizabeth Gough is a Professor of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering at The University of Manchester. She specializes on controlling cellular responses at the cell-biomaterial interface by engineering defined surfaces for mechanically sensitive connective tissues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Milica Radisic</span> Serbian Canadian tissue engineer

Milica Radisic is a Serbian Canadian tissue engineer, academic and researcher. She is a professor at the University of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering, and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. She co-founded TARA Biosystems and is a senior scientist at the Toronto General Hospital Research Institute.

Shruti Naik is an Indian American scientist who is an assistant professor of biological sciences at the NYU Langone Medical Center. In 2020 Naik was named a Packard Fellow for her research into the molecular mechanisms that underpin the function of tissue stem cells. She was awarded the 2018 regional Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists and the International Takeda Innovator in Regeneration Award. She has also received the NIH Directors Innovator Award and been named a Pew Stewart Scholar in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamadreza Baghaban Eslaminejad</span>

Mohamadreza Baghaban Eslaminejad is the director of the Adult Stem Cell Lab and histology/embryology Professor at the Royan Institute where he held a multi-departmental professorship in bioengineering, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, and stem cell therapy. Eslaminejad studies have been cited over 4000 times. He is best known for Hard Tissue Engineering and utilizing Mesenchymal stem cells for treatment of orthopedic diseases.

Shelly R. Peyton is an American chemical engineer who is the Armstrong Professional Development Professor in the Department of CHemical Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research considers the development of biomaterials to investigate metastatic cancer and potential new therapies.

Anjali Kusumbe is a British-Indian biologist who is the Head of the Tissue and Tumour Microenvironments Group at the Medical Research Council Human Immunology Unit and Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine at the University of Oxford. She was awarded the Royal Microscopical Society Award for Life Sciences in 2022.

Tatiana Segura is an American biomedical engineer who is a professor at Duke University. Her research considers biomedical engineering solutions to promote cell growth. She was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering in 2017 and awarded the Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal in 2021.

Ultrasound-triggered drug delivery using stimuli-responsive hydrogels refers to the process of using ultrasound energy for inducing drug release from hydrogels that are sensitive to acoustic stimuli. This method of approach is one of many stimuli-responsive drug delivery-based systems that has gained traction in recent years due to its demonstration of localization and specificity of disease treatment. Although recent developments in this field highlight its potential in treating certain diseases such as COVID-19, there remain many major challenges that need to be addressed and overcome before more related biomedical applications are clinically translated into standard of care.

References

  1. 1 2 Ronke Olabisi publications indexed by Google Scholar OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
  2. 1 2 "#WCWinSTEM: Ronke M. Olabisi, Ph.D. – VanguardSTEM Conversations". VanguardSTEM Conversations. 2017-08-30. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  3. ↑ "Mae Jemison and Olaronke Olabisi, 2016". MIT Black History. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  4. ↑ "Ronke Olabisi, PhD – 2015 SYMPOSIUM". 2015.symposium.100yss.org. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  5. 1 2 "Speakers – CUWiP @ UCSD". cuwip.ucsd.edu. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  6. ↑ "Bone Formation through Biomineralization and Bioengineering (Postdoctoral Fellowship) - NSBRI". NSBRI. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  7. ↑ "ESSENCE Network: Scientist Ronke Mojoyinola Olabisi Shares the Magic of the Human Body - Essence". Essence. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  8. ↑ "Rutgers professor's research could revolutionize process of human healing | The Daily Targum". The Daily Targum. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  9. ↑ "Professor aims to help the healing impaired". SmartBrief. 2017-02-17. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  10. ↑ "US Patent Application for METHODS AND COMPOSITIONS FOR BONE FORMATION Patent Application (Application #20130017228 issued January 17, 2013) - Justia Patents Search". patents.justia.com. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  11. ↑ "Scientists are using seashells to regrow bones". Business Insider. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  12. 1 2 "NSF Award Search: Award#1752079 - CAREER: Tissue Engineering Better Cell Therapies for Wound Healing". nsf.gov. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  13. ↑ Podcasts, SparkDialog (2017-06-30). "Your Body in Space — with guest Dr. Ronke Olabisi". SparkDialog Podcasts. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  14. ↑ "One Doctor Exploring Wound Care on Earth and in Space". advancedtissue.com. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  15. 1 2 "Hailing a New Constellation of STEM Stars". The Hive. Retrieved 2018-09-07.
  16. ↑ TauZeroFoundation (2013-03-29), 100YSS @ EU Parliament - Dr. Ronke Olabisi , retrieved 2018-09-07
  17. ↑ "If You Want To Be Successful, Be Tenacious". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-20.
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