Tissue
Transplants, Scotch Fillets, Leather Jackets ...
All
grown under a Microscope?
Henry
Ko never knows what he's looking for, let alone finding
by
Sarah Coggan
The
field of biomedical and tissue engineering are fairly new
areas of science, but their exciting possibilities are endless.
UNSW PhD student Henry Ko loves the fact that the research
he is now undertaking could transform the way we deliver healthcare,
among other things.
"Every time you look through a microscope, there
could be any result.”
Henry’s research at the moment is on how to grow vascularised
tissue cells (tissue already supplied with blood vessels)
in the laboratory. If he succeeds, this advance would have
a major impact on how quickly people could recover from major
transplant and injury operations.
Innovation in this area of science is a must, and worldwide
travel comes as a bit of a bonus. Henry shares his knowledge
and learns new techniques by attending at least two international
conferences a year on tissue engineering. Here, he interacts
with a wide range of participants, from doctors to policy
makers as well as members of the press.
"It is becoming more important to include science
communicators in these conferences, because it is not worth
having new technologies if everyone is afraid of them and
doesn’t trust it.”
But what is there to be afraid of?
There are a lot of people who are intentionally out there
to push the boundaries of what science can actually do….
New “no animal
cruelty” leather?
Henry has previously worked with scientist, Oran Catts, who
managed to grow animal cells in the shape of a tiny jacket.
How about a “cattle free” steak?
Also equally bizarre, bio-technicians have managed to grow
muscle cells from frogs into big pieces of edible meat. Hungry
anyone?
In this weird and wacky field of endless possibilities, I
wondered what Henry Ko endeavoured to find on April 12th,
a day in the life of Science.
"I had quite a boring day really. I did a lot of
microscopy work looking at slides I had prepared a month earlier.
Work in this area is methodical, and does take some time.”
Here’s hoping we will be ready to receive Henry’s discoveries
when he finds them.
Fancy a new jacket?
Follow these links to learn more about:
Oran
Catts and his art/science project SymbioticA
Other
WWDS Stories on Scientists involved in SymbioticA
Biomedical
engineering at UNSW
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