Date : Tuesday 5 December 2000
Time : 8:30 am to 12.30 pm
Venue : Faculty of Engineering, NUSBlk EA #02-11

Programme
8.15 - 8.30am Registration

State of the Art and Future Perspectives of Tissue Engineering Research
8.30 - 9.00am M. Agrawal - Design Essentials for Tissue Engineering Scaffolds
9.00 - 9.30am R. Reis - Processing and SurfaceTreatment Methodologies for the Production of Scaffolds from Starch-Based Polymers 

9.30 - 10.00am R. Landers - Design and Fabrication of Scaffolds by Applying Rapid Prototyping Systems
10.00 - 10.30am D. Hutmacher - Tissue Engineering of Bone and Cartilage 
10.30 - 11.00am Coffee Break

Clinical Frontiers in Tissue Engineering
11.00 - 11.30am B. Stark - Clinical Application of Tissue Engineered Constructs in Plastic Surgery 
11.30 - 12.00pm G. Lauer - Clinical Application of Tissue Engineered Constructs in Oral and 

Maxillofacial Surgery 
12.00 - 12.30pm Panel Discussion

Course Objectives
The concept of tissue engineering arises from the need to develop an alternative method of treating patients suffering from tissue loss or organ failure. Current therapies in use today are not only expensive but often do not adequately fulfil their intended purpose. In standard organ transplantation, a mismatch of tissue types necessitates lifelong immunosuppression, with its attendant problems of graft rejection, drug therapy costs, and the potential for the development of cancer. Even when one's own tissues are used, the types of tissues available for reconstruction are often unsuitable, e.g. when a bone block is used for orthopaedic reconstruction or a osteochondral transplant for articular cartilage repair. In all such circumstances, surgical invasion of another part of the body leaves a patient in pain, in jeopardy of functional losses at the donor site, and in need of additional care. These problems will be solved only when human tissues can be custom-designed and grown -- a prospect that is closer to reality than most people realise. Tissue engineering is a truly multidisciplinary field which applies the principles of engineering, life science, and basic science to the development of viable substitutes which restore, maintain, or improve the function of human tissues. Today, tissue engineering researchers are attempting to engineer virtually every human tissue. Potential tissue-engineered products include cartilage and bone, nerves, muscle, bladder, liver, etc.. It is the objective of this workshop to present and discuss the frontiers of tissue engineering from a research and clinical point of view.

Enquiries : Ms Yvonne Tan or Ms Jong Hui Sian for more information at 
Professional Activities Centre
Faculty of Engineering
National University of Singapore
9 Engineering Drive 1
Blk EA #04-10
Singapore 117576

Fax: (65) 874 5097 / (65) 777 3847
Tel : (65) 874 5113/ (65) 7782314 or 
Email : enggen31@nus.edu.sg ;engjhs@nus.edu.sg 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Fee :US$150.00 or S$260.00 (GST exempted)

Payment : Payment is required prior to the course. Crossed cheques should be made payable to "ICBME" and mailed together with the registration form to the mentioned address.

Closing Date: 28 November 2000

About the speakers
Dr. M. Agrawal
Dr. M. Agrawal is the Director of the Center for Clinical Bioengineering and Director of Orthopaedic Bioengineering at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio (UTHSCSA). He also serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Orthopaedics at UTHSCSA and holds a faculty position in the Division of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Texas in Austin. Prior to starting the Orthopaedic Biomaterials program at UTHSCSA in 1991, he served on the faculty in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University. Dr. Agrawal has worked extensively in the area of biodegradable materials for the past 12 years. He specializes in the use of biodegradable polymers in tissue engineering. His work in this field has resulted in several patents, which have been licensed to commercial entities. During his professional career, Dr. Agrawal has been the recipient of several honors and awards, and has authored more than 175 scientific publications and 17 patents. He has served on the Board of Directors of the Society for Biomaterials, and is the Scientific Program Chair of the Annual meeting of this society for the year 2001.Dr. Agrawal serves as a contributing editor for the Biomaterials Forum and on the editorial board of Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Journal of Biomedical Materials Research (Applied Biomaterials) and Tissue Engineering.

Dietmar W. Hutmacher
Dietmar W. Hutmacher directs the Tissue Engineering Group at the Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering, NUS since January 1999. He has a strong academic and industrial background. He has research experience of more than 10 years in Biomedical Engineering with expertise in biomaterials, biomechanics, and tissue engineering. From 1991 to 1998 he lectured on a part time base at the University of Applied Sciences Offenburg. In the past, he worked in Germany for several international medical device companies being a Founder, Managing Director and Shareholder of a R&D enterprise from 1992 to 1994. From 1995 to 1998 he did run is own consultant business in the area of biomedical engineering. Today, is major field of interest is tissue engineering bone, cartilage and skin. He has over 140 papers published in international journals and conference proceedings.

Rudiger Landers
Rudiger Landers is a PhD-Student of Prof. Dr. R. Muellhaupt, the Director of the Materials Research Center at the Albert Ludwigs University Freiburg. Prof. Muellhaupt is a internationally well known polymer chemist and serves on the editorial board of a number of journals. The Feiburger Group has developed a patented Rapid Prototyping System for the fabrication of scaffolds for tissue engineering applications.

Prof. G. Lauer
Prof. G. Lauer is the Deputy Head of the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technical University Dresden. Prof. Lauer has established the clinical use of tissue engineering techniques for mucosa nearly ten years ago, being one of the first in the field to do so. So far this technique has been applied to nearly 50 patients. A longterm study in patients using these cultured mucosa grafts for coverage after peri-implant soft-tissue correction, showed evidence that clinically as well as histologically and immunhistologically similar results were achieved as compared to the standard grafting procedure of split mucosa. In 1998 he started preliminary clinical trials by using tissue engineered bone for oral and maxillofacial reconstructions.

Dr. R. Reis
Dr. R. Reis has been involved in biomaterials research since his graduation in 1990. He has worked several periods abroad, in different Universities and companies, namely in UK and The Netherlands. His main area of research is the development of biomaterials from starch based polymers that his group, run together with Prof.António M. Cunha, originally proposed for a range of biomedical applications, including bone replacement and fixation, drug delivery carriers, partially degradable bone cements and tissue engineering scaffolding. He actively co-operates with companies and research groups in Portugal, Italy, Turkey, Singapore and USA. He is co-responsible in U. Minho by the European Union (EU) project"ISOBONE - A Tissue Engineering Living Bone Equivalent", on which starch based polymers are being assessed to be used on tissue engineering applications. The ISOBONE project was recently a major highlight on a briefing held in Brussels by the EU Commissar for Science and Technology, being presented as an example of how European research can compete with USA. He is also responsible in U. Minho for another big European project, the ALGISORB that tries to develop new biomaterials from algae and chitin/chitosan. 

Prof. B. Stark
Prof. B. Stark is the Head of the Department of Plastic Surgery, Albert Ludwigs University Hospital Freiburg. He has been working in the field of Tissue Engineering from a research as well as clinical point of view for more then 10 years. He and his group have applied tissue engineered skin and cartilage grafts for more then three years in a number of clinical trials. Prof. Stark is the founder and Director of the Freiburger Tissue Engineering Initiative and of the company BIOTISSUE. He serves on the editorial board of the Tissue Engineering Journal. He is also one of the founders and a Board Member of the European Tissue Society.