Download MAE Colloquium: Lonnie Shea, PhD (University of Michigan)

Sib ley Scho ol of Mechanical and A ero space
Eng ineer ing Colloq uium Ser ies
“Systems Tissue Engineering”
Lonnie Shea, PhD
Professor and William and Valerie Hall Chair
University of Michigan
Tuesday, December 1st, 2015, 4:00 pm | B11 Kimball Hall
Refreshments at 3:30, Upson Hall Lounge
Abstract
Systems and strategies for promoting tissue growth provide enabling technologies for either enhancing
regeneration for diseased or injured tissues, or to investigate abnormal tissue formation such as cancer. Given the complexity
inherent in tissues, my laboratory is working towards the concept of "Systems Tissue Engineering", which indicates the
dual need i) to develop systems capable of presenting combinations of factors that drive tissue growth, as well as ii) to
incorporate systems biology approaches that can identify the appropriate combination of factors. Biomaterial scaffolds
represent a central component of many approaches and provide the enabling tools for creating an environment and/or deliver
factors that can direct cellular processes toward tissue formation. We have developed scaffolds with the objective of
providing factors to stimulate growth and also blocking factors that inhibit regeneration, and will illustrate this approach
through our work with islet transplantation in Type 1 Diabetes therapy and scaffolds for the early detection of cancer. The
immune response has become a central focus, and will present results for local immunomodulation around the scaffold, as
well as the development of nanoparticles for modulating the immune response, in order to induce tolerance in autoimmune
disease and allogeneic cell transplantation.
The ability to present multiple factors raises the challenge of identifying the combination that will maximally
promote tissue formation. Toward this goal, we have developed a cellular array for the large scale profiling of transcription
factor activity throughout tissue formation, which we propose can identify the factors necessary to drive cells towards the
desired phenotype. This array represents a novel systems biology tool for molecularly dissecting tissue formation. This
approach of relating tissue development to molecular design of the scaffold may ultimately lead to the formation of
engineered tissues that could provide alternatives to whole organ or tissue transplantation.
Biographical sketch
Lonnie Shea received his PhD in chemical engineering and scientific
computing from Michigan in 1997. He received his PhD in chemical engineering
and scientific computing from U-M in 1997, working with Professor Jennifer
Linderman. He then served as a postdoctoral fellow with then ChE Professor David
Mooney in the Department of Biologic and Materials Science at the U-M Dental
School.
Shea had been on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Department of
Chemical and Biological Engineering from 1999 to 2014. In 2014, Shea moved to
the University of Michigan as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering.
He is an internationally recognized researcher at the interface of regenerative
medicine, drug and gene delivery, and immune tolerance, whose focus is
controlling the local microenvironment for directing tissue growth or regeneration.
His projects include ovarian follicle maturation for treating infertility, islet
transplantation for diabetes therapies, nerve regeneration for treating paralysis,
autoimmune diseases and allogeneic cell transplantation, and cancer diagnostics. He is also developing and applying systems
biology approaches to molecularly dissect tissue formation and identify key drivers of normal and abnormal growth.
Shea has published more than 180 manuscripts, and has numerous inventions to his credit, among them a cellular
assay with which he can measure the activity of numerous transcription factors within the cell that reveal key signaling
pathways as cells differentiate. He served as director of Northwestern’s NIH Biotechnology Training Grant and was a
member of its Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine. He is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and
Biological Engineering (AIMBE), a standing member of the Biomaterials and Biointerfaces study section at NIH, and a
member of the editorial boards for Molecular Therapy, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and Drug Delivery and
Translational Research.