Tissue and Organ bioengineering

Tissue and organ bioengineering is a new fascinating chapter of research in life sciences. It is a big challenge for academic researchers and for entrepreneurs since major benefits are forecasted.

It is a multidisciplinary work gathering cell biologists, developmental biologists, engineers, physicists, chemists, mathematicians and computer scientists. 

Differentiation of stem cells into mature and functional cells, development of scaffolds onto which cells can stick, divide and differentiate, in vitro recapitulation of organogenesis, layer by layer bioprinting of tissues are the technologies that will allow to build simple or more complex tissues, organoids and fully equipped organs available for transplantation. Besides, tissue engineering leads to the construction of organ-on-chips which have been boosted by the development of microfluidic technology and with potentially wide applications in predictive toxicology, drug metabolism and micro physiology, but also leads to the development of external bio artificial organs such as lungs or livers that can allow sustaining life during an acute phase of illnesses.

This MOOC is divided in five chapters :

• The first chapter deals with cells, biomaterials, scaffolds and modeling.
• The second chapter is dedicated to the techniques of biofabrication: micro-patterning, bioprinting and recapitulation of organogenesis.
• The third chapter develops the technologies of chips and of spheroids.
• In the fourth chapter the applications of bioengineering for the skin, trachea, esophagus, bones and ultimately the liver are described.
• The fifth chapter is dedicated to external bioartificial organs but also to the regulatory aspects of tissue and organs bioengineering as well as to the perspectives in terms of industrial developments.

Teachers of this MOOC are physicians, academic scientists and entrepreneurs involved in bio-fabrication