TED2011
Nina Tandon: Caring for engineered tissue
Filmed:
Readability: 3.5
556,310 views
Tissue engineer and TED Fellow Nina Tandon is growing artificial hearts and bones. To do that, she needs new ways of caring for artificially grown cells -- techniques she's developed by the simple but powerful method of copying their natural environments.
Nina Tandon - Tissue engineering researcher
Nina Tandon studies ways to use electrical signals to grow artificial tissues for transplants and other therapies. Full bio
Nina Tandon studies ways to use electrical signals to grow artificial tissues for transplants and other therapies. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:15
Good morning everybody.
0
0
3000
00:18
I work with really amazing,
1
3000
2000
00:20
little, itty-bitty creatures called cells.
2
5000
3000
00:23
And let me tell you what it's like
3
8000
2000
00:25
to grow these cells in the lab.
4
10000
2000
00:27
I work in a lab where we take cells out of their native environment.
5
12000
3000
00:30
We plate them into dishes
6
15000
2000
00:32
that we sometimes call petri dishes.
7
17000
2000
00:34
And we feed them -- sterilely of course --
8
19000
3000
00:37
with what we call cell culture media -- which is like their food --
9
22000
3000
00:40
and we grow them in incubators.
10
25000
3000
00:43
Why do I do this?
11
28000
2000
00:45
We observe the cells in a plate,
12
30000
2000
00:47
and they're just on the surface.
13
32000
2000
00:49
But what we're really trying to do in my lab
14
34000
3000
00:52
is to engineer tissues out of them.
15
37000
3000
00:55
What does that even mean?
16
40000
2000
00:57
Well it means growing an actual heart,
17
42000
2000
00:59
let's say,
18
44000
2000
01:01
or grow a piece of bone
19
46000
2000
01:03
that can be put into the body.
20
48000
2000
01:05
Not only that, but they can also be used for disease models.
21
50000
3000
01:08
And for this purpose, traditional cell culture techniques
22
53000
2000
01:10
just really aren't enough.
23
55000
2000
01:12
The cells are kind of homesick;
24
57000
2000
01:14
the dish doesn't feel like their home.
25
59000
2000
01:16
And so we need to do better at copying their natural environment
26
61000
2000
01:18
to get them to thrive.
27
63000
2000
01:20
We call this the biomimetic paradigm --
28
65000
2000
01:22
copying nature in the lab.
29
67000
3000
01:25
Let's take the example of the heart,
30
70000
2000
01:27
the topic of a lot of my research.
31
72000
2000
01:29
What makes the heart unique?
32
74000
2000
01:31
Well, the heart beats,
33
76000
2000
01:33
rhythmically, tirelessly, faithfully.
34
78000
3000
01:36
We copy this in the lab
35
81000
2000
01:38
by outfitting cell culture systems with electrodes.
36
83000
3000
01:41
These electrodes act like mini pacemakers
37
86000
2000
01:43
to get the cells to contract in the lab.
38
88000
3000
01:46
What else do we know about the heart?
39
91000
2000
01:48
Well, heart cells are pretty greedy.
40
93000
2000
01:50
Nature feeds the heart cells in your body
41
95000
2000
01:52
with a very, very dense blood supply.
42
97000
2000
01:54
In the lab, we micro-pattern channels
43
99000
2000
01:56
in the biomaterials
44
101000
2000
01:58
on which we grow the cells,
45
103000
2000
02:00
and this allows us to flow the cell culture media, the cells' food,
46
105000
3000
02:03
through the scaffolds where we're growing the cells --
47
108000
3000
02:06
a lot like what you might expect
48
111000
2000
02:08
from a capillary bed in the heart.
49
113000
2000
02:10
So this brings me to lesson number one:
50
115000
3000
02:13
life can do a lot with very little.
51
118000
3000
02:16
Let's take the example of electrical stimulation.
52
121000
2000
02:18
Let's see how powerful just one of these essentials can be.
53
123000
3000
02:22
On the left, we see a tiny piece of beating heart tissue
54
127000
3000
02:25
that I engineered from rat cells in the lab.
55
130000
2000
02:27
It's about the size of a mini marshmallow.
56
132000
2000
02:29
And after one week, it's beating.
57
134000
2000
02:31
You can see it in the upper left-hand corner.
58
136000
2000
02:33
But don't worry if you can't see it so well.
59
138000
2000
02:35
It's amazing that these cells beat at all.
60
140000
3000
02:38
But what's really amazing
61
143000
2000
02:40
is that the cells, when we electrically stimulate them,
62
145000
2000
02:42
like with a pacemaker,
63
147000
2000
02:44
that they beat so much more.
64
149000
2000
02:46
But that brings me to lesson number two:
65
151000
2000
02:48
cells do all the work.
66
153000
2000
02:50
In a sense, tissue engineers have a bit of an identity crisis here,
67
155000
3000
02:53
because structural engineers
68
158000
2000
02:55
build bridges and big things,
69
160000
3000
02:58
computer engineers, computers,
70
163000
2000
03:00
but what we are doing
71
165000
2000
03:02
is actually building enabling technologies for the cells themselves.
72
167000
3000
03:05
What does this mean for us?
73
170000
2000
03:07
Let's do something really simple.
74
172000
2000
03:09
Let's remind ourselves
75
174000
2000
03:11
that cells are not an abstract concept.
76
176000
3000
03:14
Let's remember that our cells sustain our lives
77
179000
3000
03:17
in a very real way.
78
182000
2000
03:19
"We are what we eat," could easily be described
79
184000
3000
03:22
as, "We are what our cells eat."
80
187000
2000
03:24
And in the case of the flora in our gut,
81
189000
2000
03:26
these cells may not even be human.
82
191000
3000
03:30
But it's also worth noting
83
195000
2000
03:32
that cells also mediate our experience of life.
84
197000
3000
03:35
Behind every sound, sight, touch, taste and smell
85
200000
3000
03:38
is a corresponding set of cells
86
203000
2000
03:40
that receive this information
87
205000
2000
03:42
and interpret it for us.
88
207000
2000
03:44
It begs the question:
89
209000
2000
03:46
shall we expand our sense of environmental stewardship
90
211000
3000
03:49
to include the ecosystem of our own bodies?
91
214000
3000
03:52
I invite you to talk about this with me further,
92
217000
2000
03:54
and in the meantime, I wish you luck.
93
219000
3000
03:57
May none of your non-cancer cells
94
222000
2000
03:59
become endangered species.
95
224000
2000
04:01
Thank you.
96
226000
2000
04:03
(Applause)
97
228000
4000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Nina Tandon - Tissue engineering researcherNina Tandon studies ways to use electrical signals to grow artificial tissues for transplants and other therapies.
Why you should listen
Nina Tandon studies electrical signaling in the context of tissue engineering, with the goal of creating “spare parts” for human implantation and/or disease models. After receiving a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Cooper Union, Nina worked on an electronic nose used to “smell” lung cancer as a Fulbright scholar in Rome. She studied electrical stimulation for cardiac tissue engineering at MIT and Columbia, and now continues her research on electrical stimulation for broader tissue-engineering applications. Tandon was a 2011 TED Fellow and a 2012 Senior Fellow. Nina was also honored as one of Foreign Policy's 2015 Global Thinkers.
Nina Tandon | Speaker | TED.com