"Biomechanical Stimulus for Tissue Engineering and Drug Delivery Applications in Musculo-skeletal Tissues"

Dominique P. Pioletti, PhD - EPFL, Lausanne-Switzerland

Abstract:
Mechanical stimulus has been identified since a long time as a key player in the adaptation of the musculo-skeletal tissues to their particular function. The tissue differentiation has also been demonstrated to be influenced by its local loading environment. Mechanical loading is then an intrinsic variable to be considered when new development is proposed for treating different patho-physiological situations in the musculo-skeletal system. In this talk, I will describe this mechanical situation in the context of tissue engineering and drug delivery system. In particular, I will propose to make a clear distinction between: i) classical biomechanics tending to make a structural analysis of the mechanical situation under study (e.g. bone scaffold mechanical properties), and ii) mechano-transduction aspects tending to understand or use the mechanical stimulus for clinical application. I will give two examples how we take advantage of this mechanical stimulation. The first example will be the effect of controlled loading on bone formation inside polymeric scaffold and the second example will be the coupling between a loading and a delayed drug delivery system.

Biography:
Dominique Pioletti received his Master in Physics from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (known as EPFL) in 1992. He pursued his education in the same Institution and obtained his PhD in biomechanics in 1997. He developed original constitutive laws taking into account viscoelasticity in large deformations. Then he spent two years at UCSD as post-doc fellow acquiring know-how in cell and molecular biology. He was interested in particular to gene expression of bone cells in contact to orthopedic implant. Since April 2006, Dominique Pioletti is appointed Assistant Professor tenure-track at the EPFL and is director of the Laboratory of Biomechanical Orthopedics. His research topics include biomechanics and tissue engineering of musculo-skeletal tissues; mechano-transduction in bone; development of orthopedic implant as drug delivery system.

Faculty host:  Bob Guldberg, PhD

The Bioengineering Seminar Series is a joint seminar series between IBB and the BME department. Seminars are held on Tuesdays or Thursdays between 11am-12pm in IBB room 1128 unless otherwise indicated.