Course syllabus

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Most welcome to the course KPO065 Tissue Engineering!

KPO065 Tissue engineering lp3 VT20 (7.5 hp)

The course starts Tuesday the 21st of January at 10 am in MC, Hörsalsvägen 5

Contact details

Examiner:

Lecturers:

Teacher's assistants:

Project coaches:

  1. Stina Simonsson (cartilage)
  2. Kristin Oskarsdotter, Alexander Back (wound healing)
  3. Sanna Sämfors (neural)
  4. Paul Gatenholm (diabetes)

Aim of course

Although lives of thousands of people are saved by reconstructive surgery, many people are still waiting for organ donations. In the last decade Tissue engineering has emerged as a new discipline within reconstructive surgery, with focus on in vitro fabrication of living, human spare parts. Tissue engineering encompasses several different sciences such as biology, chemistry, material science, engineering, immunology and transplantation. The course in Tissue engineering provides a general understanding of tissue growth and development as well as the tools and theoretical information necessary to design tissues and organs.

Research, diploma work and graduate studies

There are several ongoing, interdisciplinary projects at Sahlgrenska Academy and Chalmers that aim at developing cartilage, bone, blood vessels and other tissues. Chalmers and Sahlgrenska participated in several
European programs founded by the EU, which made it possible for students to carry out studies in leading institutes in Europe and the USA.

Work market

There are already many small biotechnology companies within the field of Tissue Engineering as well as in well-established biomaterial companies. Recently the pharmaceutical industry has shown a lot of interest in
entering the tissue engineering arena.

Organisation

The course consists of lectures, seminars, laboratory- and project work. Laboratory work will include an introduction to sterile technique, cell seeding laboratory and tissue biofabrication. In the group projects, students will prepare grant proposals for tissue engineering of selected tissue/organs for unmet clinical needs. The written
proposal will be submitted and presented orally.

Content

The following topics will be covered:

  • Introduction
  • Cell biology, the basis of growth and differentiation
  • Morphogenesis
  • Growth factors
  • In vitro control of tissue development
  • Tissue culture
  • Biomaterial scaffolds
  • Cell-biomaterial interactions
  • Bioreactors
  • Biofabrication incl. 3D Bioprinting of tissues and organs

Course literature

Examination
Examination through a written exam, laboratory exercise, written grant proposal submission and grant proposal presentations.

Written exam will take place on March 17th 2020.

Individual active participation is required in all group work. Grading will reflect the level of achievement of the whole group, with individual adjustment of grades from the group grade applied when relevant.

Projects

Each student will select one tissue engineering project which is presented 24 of January. These projects will
include literature studies during TE. Project coaches will meet their groups and introduce the project in more
detail, explain the goal and also provide guidance to literature search. Students should start immediately with
the literature studies. During course TE students will do literature search and collect background information
for the chosen project. There will be consultation time with project leaders.

A short presentation of the clinical aspects of each project should be presented on the 29 January. The
presentation should be 5 minutes long and all group members should be present.

There will be 30 minutes presentations of each project on the 6 of March. At the end of TE a written grant
proposal for the project should be handed in by each group by 13 of March.

Learning objectives 

After completion of the course, the student should be able to:

  • Describe the principles of tissue engineering
  • Describe clinical applications of tissue engineered products in regenerative medicine
  • Define the importance of scaffold materials in tissue engineering with focus on surface-, mechanical- and biological properties
  • Describe different scaffold materials and define in what applications these materials can be applied
  • Describe several scaffold fabrication techniques such as electrospinning and solvent casting/particulate leaching
  • Describe different biofabrication methods of tissue with focus on additive manufacturing, and particularly, the 3D Bioprinting technology
  • Describe the early events that occur in tissue development, from the first division in the egg to the migration of cells to form the different germ layers
  • Describe the formation of different organs due to gene regulations and cell signaling
  • Describe the equipment used in cell culturing laboratory
  • Describe the basic components of the Extracellular Matrix (ECM) and its importance in tissue engineering
  • Describe the signaling process between cells and cell-ECM and its potential outcomes on cellular fate
  • Define the importance of bioreactors in tissue engineering
  • In theory, design a bioreactor and put emphasis on its requirements for cultivation of tissue engineered products
  • Define the ethical and regulatory aspects of tissue engineering in clinical applications
  • Develop a project within the field of tissue engineering which seeks to solve unmet clinical needs

https://student.portal.chalmers.se/en/chalmersstudies/courseinformation/Pages/SearchCourse.aspx?course_id=29799&parsergrp=3

 

Course summary:

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