PITTSBURGH, July 8 PA-MiddleSchool-camp
PITTSBURGH, July 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Have you ever wondered why a starfish
can completely grow a new arm, but humans cannot? Or, how about the fact that
a salamander can regenerate a severed leg, but human beings have to rely on
man-made, prosthetic limbs? Many of us have asked the same questions for a
long time and, in fact, many cutting-edge, "tissue engineering" researchers
are beginning to find the answers. What's even more exciting is that much of
this ground-breaking work is being done in our own backyard, with the
Pittsburgh region recognized as a world-class leader in tissue engineering and
regenerative medicine.
Tissue Engineering (TE) and Regenerative Medicine are revolutionary
technologies that offer incredible hope to people with compromised tissue
function. The challenge for is to help humans tap into their innate ability to
regenerate damaged, diseased or compromised body parts -- Much like the
Starfish and salamander! This requires a team approach and the coordinated
efforts of biologists, chemists, physicists, engineers, computer specialists
and physicians. For one week this summer, 48 middle school students across
the Pittsburgh region will become a member of a tissue engineering team as
they seek answers to the mystery of regeneration in the starfish and
salamander and learn how tissue engineering might help humans be able to more
easily accomplish what the starfish and salamander readily can.
The Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) has been long viewed
as a leader in creating awareness and facilitating educational enrichment
activities for professionals, educators, elementary and secondary students,
college students, and post doctoral candidates. This summer, PTEI is
providing two separate, one-week, hands-on tissue engineering summer camps
during the weeks of July 7th to July 11th and again on July 14th to July 18th
with camp headquarters at the University of Pittsburgh Center for
Biotechnology and Bioengineering, located off Second Avenue at 300 Technology
Drive, Pittsburgh.
Middle school campers will experience becoming members of a medical team
dedicated to a difficult task and challenge related to sports injury. A local
star athlete has a seriously damaged keen joint and traditional medical
attempts at repair have been unable to restore him to peak performance. The
challenge for the tissue engineering camper teams will be to, "boldly go where
no surgeon has gone before as they seek to develop strategies and utilize
technologies that will enable them to fabricate NEW tissue to replace the
athlete's damaged knee joint. What technologies might be used? What
experimental strategies can you imagine? What ethical considerations are
raised by this scientific breakthrough? Through work with team members at camp
headquarters and also at local tissue engineering laboratories and facilities,
middle school campers will explore these questions and more.
Joan Schanck, Director of Education for the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering
Initiative describes, "Through participation in the tissue engineering summer
camp, we are helping students learn that science is so much more than just
lists of factoids and formulas. By taking an inter-disciplinary approach,
students are able to gain abilities to build scientific understanding and
enhance communication skills. Students who are actively engaged in a hands-
on, application-based approach to learning will be most likely to remember
material. As well, the camp encourages students to think by requiring
interpretation of observed events, rather than memorization. Overall Tissue
Engineering Summer Camp promotes fun in the classroom for students who
typically do not get one-on-one interaction in science for an entire week."
Components of the summer camp receive partial supported by Grant Number 1
R25 RR023286 from the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR), a
component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and by a Pennsylvania
Department of Community and Economic Development Workforce Leadership Grant.
About the Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative
The Pittsburgh Tissue Engineering Initiative (PTEI) incorporated in
January 1996 as a free-standing, novel initiative designed to encourage
development of tissue engineering (TE) by uniting the scientific, engineering,
and commercial talent of Pittsburgh and southwestern Pennsylvania. At the
nexus of TE for a decade, PTEI serves stakeholders' interests by joining
academic researchers with government and industry to promote development of
advanced TE therapies and technologies and deliver them more rapidly to
patients and the marketplace. Central to PTEI's mission to advance the field
of regenerative medicine by cultivating research and commercial development is
an educational mandate to develop models and programs to grow the intellectual
capacity required to support this promising field.
The Allegheny-Singer Research Institute, Carnegie Mellon University,
Duquesne University, the University of Pittsburgh and the University of
Pittsburgh Medical Center share a vision of the region as an international
center of excellence in the field of regenerative medicine and have pooled
their expertise in basic biomedical research, applied clinical investigations,
organ transplantation, biomaterials research, computer and supercomputer
science, advanced imaging techniques, and advanced bioengineering to make this
vision a reality.
For additional information you are invited to visit our Web site at
www.PTEI.org and/or contact LaShon Jackson, Educational Program Manager, at
412/235-5230, or email at ljackson@ptei.org
SOURCE Pittsburgh Life Sciences Greenhouse
