Abstract
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The combined efforts of these trainees have resulted in several areas of contribution to the field. Beginning early in its inception, the focus of the laboratory has been the synthesis of novel polymers for use as scaffolds in tissue engineering. These classes of biomaterials possess a wide variety of physical and chemical properties and have been applied in orthopedic, dental, cardiovascular, neurologic, and ophthalmologic areas.
Additional areas of interest within the laboratory have been the fabrication of scaffolds, including nanocomposites, and the development of drug delivery systems. These drug delivery systems have acted as vehicles for a variety of therapeutics, including proteins, nucleic acids, and small molecules such as antibiotics. Along those lines, the laboratory has also contributed polymeric vehicles for gene delivery as alternatives to viral-based vectors. Moreover, the laboratory has designed a variety of different bioreactors for the generation of extracellular matrix, three-dimensional tumor models for personalized medicine, and other applications. These contributions would not be possible without the inspiration of many important collaborators. The first group of these key collaborators includes Mikos' graduate advisor, Nicholas Peppas, formerly of Purdue University and more recently of the University of Texas at Austin, and his postdoctoral mentors, Robert Langer, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Joseph Vacanti, of Harvard Medical School. The founding of the laboratory was facilitated by the mentorship of Suzanne Eskin and Larry McIntire, formerly of Rice University and more recently of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The Mikos Laboratory has also had strong ties to collaborators within the Texas Medical Center, including Kyriacos Athanasiou, Paul Engel, Cindy Farach-Carson, Jane Grande-Allen, James Tour, and Kyriacos Zygourakis of Rice University; Michael Barry and Karen Hirschi of Baylor College of Medicine; Catherine Ambrose and Mark Wong of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston; and Dimitrios Kontoyiannis and Joseph Ludwig of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
In addition to these local partnerships, a point of emphasis within the laboratory has been the creation of strong collaborations with groups all over the country and world. These collaborators include Anthony Atala at Wake Forest University and other collaborators within the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine, Rena Bizios of the University of Texas at San Antonio, Yilin Cao and Wei Liu of the Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Arnold Caplan of Case Western Reserve University, Fu-Zhai Cui of Tsinghua University (China), Rena D'Souza of the University of Utah, Achim Göpferich of the University of Regensburg (Germany), John Jansen of the Radboud University Medical Center (The Netherlands), Peter Johnson of Scintellix, LLC, Michael Miller of Ohio State University, Shantikumar Nair of Amrita University (India), Anthony Ratcliffe of Synthasome, Inc., Hari Reddi of the University of California at Davis, Rui Reis of the University of Minho (Portugal), Yasuhiko Tabata of Kyoto University (Japan), the late Alan Yasko of Northwestern University, Michael Yaszemski of the Mayo Clinic, Shengmin Zhang of Huazhong University of Science and Technology (China), as well as several former trainees now succeeding in academia and industry across the world. These collaborators, in combination with the laboratory's students, have made the Mikos group's scientific contributions possible. Many of the laboratory's trainees who developed these materials and technologies have since gone on to head their own laboratories or take key positions within governmental agencies and industry. However, regardless of the impact of these scientific contributions, the Mikos Laboratory values most highly its efforts within education and building an international community within the field.
When the Mikos Laboratory was first founded, there were several laboratories scattered across the world within tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, each working largely independently. Identifying an opportunity to both educate newcomers to tissue engineering and provide up-to-date information for those established within the field, the laboratory and Rice University founded the Advances in Tissue Engineering Annual Short Course. This week-long curriculum features national and international leaders providing lectures in their areas of expertise and will be celebrating its 24th year in 2016. Mikos and colleagues were also instrumental in the founding of the Aegean Conferences in Tissue Engineering, an international meeting held on a Greek island once every 3 years, and the International Conference on Regenerative Biomedical Materials, held in Wuhan, China once every 2 years. In addition to organizing meetings, Mikos and colleagues have collaborated to produce numerous books on the subjects of biomaterials and tissue engineering, including an undergraduate textbook on Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science, published by Pearson Prentice Hall.
Current and past members of the Mikos Laboratory after a dinner celebration of the 2015 Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS)-Americas Lifetime Achievement Award in Boston (September 2015).
In further efforts to bring together people of interest, the Mikos Laboratory also has a longstanding student exchange program with collaborators in China, India, Japan, the Netherlands, and other countries across the world. This program has facilitated the exchange of ideas and cultural values, while impacting the lives of dozens of students over the past two and a half decades. Perceiving the need for a strong working relationship with physicians to translate laboratory discoveries to improvements in patient health, the Mikos Laboratory has also had a strong commitment to collaboration with colleagues within medicine. The laboratory has been the training ground for a dozen MD/PhD and MD/PhD/DDS students in partnerships with Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Dentistry within the Texas Medical Center.
In addition, current and past members of the Mikos Laboratory continue to serve in important leadership roles of the various international societies within tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. In particular, the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS) has played a major role in fostering a community and is sincerely appreciated by the laboratory, as is the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Americas chapter. The journal Tissue Engineering Parts A, B, and C has also been fundamental to the laboratory, with Mikos serving as Founding Editor and Editor-in-Chief, through its promotion of tissue engineering and ability to disseminate the most exciting data and ideas pertinent to tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The extraordinary vision of Mary Ann Liebert, publisher of the journal, has resulted in a high quality publication, which serves as a voice for those in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. Service to the field and community remains a point of emphasis within the laboratory.
Lastly, the Mikos Laboratory is indebted to its sponsors over the past two and a half decades, including the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, industry, and numerous foundations. The work of the group would not have been possible without the critical support of these sponsors, as well as that of the different administrations at Rice University over the years.
Through the dissemination of the laboratory's trainees and values within the field and across other fields of engineering and the life sciences, the Mikos Laboratory hopes to continue contributing to a strong and unified scientific community. When the laboratory was first founded, tissue engineering was largely an academic exercise. Two and a half decades later, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine is a clinical reality with multiple products that improve human condition. While the Mikos Laboratory is proud of its own accomplishments, it is most proud of the field's tremendous growth, international collaborative spirit, and positive impact on healthcare.