Our laboratory here at Harvard Medical School works closely with engineers and scientists from MIT and the Draper Laboratories. Collaborating with Professor Robert Langer from MIT, we began building living tissues using living cells on specially designed degradable plastics. This invention is now patented and being tested worldwide. In this web site you will find detailed information on what we are doing and the scientists involved. Our work is also a part of the Center for Innovations in Minimally Invasive Therapies as well as the Department of Surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital. We are happy to provide further information or consultation to patients.

Tissue Engineering is a new field in science, medicine, and engineering in which living replacements for organs and tissues of the body are designed and built. Almost every tissue and organ of the body has been studied and many are now available for human use or in the final phases of FDA approved trials.

Our laboratory at Harvard has been designing and building organs and tissues for almost 15 years. We have worked closely with scientists and engineers at MIT and have studied 27 tissues of the body. We have about 50 patents or patent pending for the field. We use cells combined with special plastics, which act as the scaffolding upon which the living tissue is built. Several clinical trials are now underway.

The accompanying diagram demonstrates what our laboratory has worked on. We are currently designing organs, which have their own circulation such as the liver, kidney, heart, and intestine. We are also attempting to repair spinal cord injury and nerve injury. Finally, we are building cartilage to repair joints, as well as ears and noses. We are also making bone.