Last week the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University awarded its Founding Director and Lab on a Chip Editorial Board member, Donald Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., the 2011 Holst Medal in recognition of his pioneering work exploring the cellular mechanisms that contribute to mechanical control of tissue and organ development, and his groundbreaking development of bioinspired technologies, ranging from organ-on-chip replacements for animal studies, to new engineering approaches for whole organ engineering.
The award was presented on December 16th at the High Tech Campus Eindhoven in the Netherlands during a ceremony at the close of the 2011 Holst Symposium, which focused on integrated heart repair. As the medal winner, Ingber also presented the 2011 Holst Memorial Lecture entitled “From Cellular Mechanotransduction to Organ Engineering.” Starting with an exploration of the role that cell structure and mechanics play in controlling tissue and organ development, Ingber’s lecture extended to provide a more comprehensive overview of his most recent innovations, including development of organ-on-chip microsystems technologies that recapitulate human organ functions, bioinspired materials that promote whole tooth organ formation, and injectable programmable nanotherapeutics that restore blood flow to occluded blood vessels.
“Donald Ingber has made groundbreaking contributions to the understanding of the mechanobiology of cellular behavior,” said Joep Huiskamp, Secretary of the Holst Memorial Lecture Award Committee 2011, on its behalf. “Ingber’s recent development of a breathing lung-on-a-chip concept is an outstanding example of convergent technologies.”
This year’s Holst events were dedicated to the global health issue of heart disease, in recognition of its enormous emotional, medical, economical, and societal implications. The symposium brought together a few select leading international experts, including Wyss Institute core faculty member Kevin Kit Parker, Ph.D., to discuss key facets of heart disease, regeneration, and repair. Parker’s work on engineering heart tissues recently featured on the Issue 24 cover of Lab on a Chip (see Ensembles of engineered cardiac tissues for physiological and pharmacological study: Heart on a chip).
Donald Ingber, together with Lab on a Chip Chair George Whitesides, will be guest editor of our final 10th Anniversary issue focusing on the USA which has the theme of translating research from the lab to the clinic, to be published next year.
Adapted from the Wyss Institute press release
