Post Chief (NonCI) Massachusetts General Hospital

John Homans Distinguished Professor of Surgery Harvard Medical School

biocompatible materials; cell transplantation; liver transplantation; polyglycolic acid; tissue engineering; tissue scaffolds

The Laboratory for Tissue Engineering and Organ Fabrication at the Massachusetts General Hospital works closely with stem cell biologists, material scientists, and engineers from the Center for Regenerative Medicine, MIT, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 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. 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.

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. Our laboratory at MGH has been designing and building organs and tissues for almost 20 years. We have worked closely with scientists and engineers at MIT and have studied 27 tissues of the body. The Tissue Engineering & Organ Fabrication Lab uses cells combined with special plastics and natural materials, which act as the scaffolding upon which the living tissue is built. Several clinical trials are planned or underway.