[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Jones_Kim-02.jpg” caption=”Kim Jones: Photo credit: Graham Jansz”]In Canada, up to 30 per cent of individuals in need of a solid organ transplant die waiting. McMaster University's Kim Jones is taking innovative steps into the field that offers the potential to one day alleviate the chronic, unrelenting and unmet need for organ donation – tissue engineering.

Tissue engineering is a growing discipline that offers extraordinary benefits to society. Tissue-engineered products, such as artificial heart valves or skin grafts, are already common in medicine. As the field develops, so will the complexity of the engineered devices. Ultimately tissue engineers may one day offer made-to-order organs for transplantation.

Jones, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, is a part of McMaster's new School of BioEngineering. Having completed graduate work in both biology and chemical engineering, Jones is ideally suited for her cutting-edge research in a relatively young and very interdisciplinary field. Jones recognizes that, “this is where the opportunities are – the facets between fields,” and it is in this somewhat unexplored facet between health science and engineering that Jones is breaking new ground.

McMaster's focus on promoting novel collaboration in interdisciplinary fields provides an ideal environment for success in bioengineering. Jones' work requires significant depth and breath of knowledge; consequently, she exploits the resources of the University by working closely with other experts in engineering, and in health and natural sciences.

According to Jones, “Tissue engineering devices are the next generation of biomedical devices.” These devices are manufactured artificially and include both living biological materials, such as cells, and non-living materials. Some of these non-living materials, such as collagen (a type of protein) are made naturally, while others, including silicone are synthetic.

Tissue engineering devices range from skin and cartilage to artificial corneas and possibly one day to complete, functioning artificial organs. Worldwide, many researchers are working towards the production such devices. Jones, however, is exploring a unique aspect of the field; in her lab at McMaster University she is studying the interactions between the body and the materials used in tissue engineering devices.

When materials enter the body, for medical purposes or unintentionally through injury or infection, the body's defense systems are activated. If the material is biological, such as an organ transplant, a bacteria or the biological components of a tissue engineered device, the body activates what is called an antigen specific response. Every cell in the body has tiny markers on it called antigens, and these markers are unique to each individual. The cells of transplanted organs or tissue-engineered devices also have the antigen markers on them; however, these markers don't match the markers of the body into which they are inserted. As a result, the body recognizes that the organ or device is foreign and the body's immune system attacks the transplant as if it were a bacteria or virus. This is the process that results in the rejection of transplanted organs.

If non-biological materials, for instance a splinter or the non-living portion of the tissue-engineered device, are inserted into the body, the reaction is slightly different. Because this non-living material has no antigen markers, the body doesnt have the same response as it does when the invaders are living cells. Instead, the body activates an inflammatory response to prevent infection and to promote healing. This response produces the redness, warmth and puffiness of a finger with a splinter.

According to Jones' work, the responses to living and non-living invaders are interrelated and interdependent: “If you simultaneously get a cold and a sliver, maybe the response to the cold is a little bit different because you have the sliver.” Although this seems like a simple statement, its implications are profound. With the help of funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Jones has established that the body's response to biological insertions is different when non-biological materials are also present.

Jones hopes to develop an understanding of how different materials affect the body's immune response, ultimately allowing scientists to control how the immune system responds to biological components.

Jones says, “One of the major goals of my program is to understand the body's biological response to biomaterials well enough to allow us to design better materials that have specific and desirable interactions with the body – ultimately allowing us to design tissue engineered constructs that allow us to save millions of lives.”

As researchers in the field of tissue engineering continue to design new biomedical devices, Jones' research will be crucial in promoting the healthy integration of these devices into the body. Tissue engineering offers the potential of designing and manufacturing life-saving biomedical devices – Jones is taking this potential even further. Her work is leading towards the development of devices that have the inherent ability to prevent their own rejection and to encourage the healing of the wound generated by their implantation.

Currently, artificial organs are not available. Long waits for lifesaving organs are a harsh reality of the present. Fortunately, researchers like Jones refuse to accept that this is the reality of the future. Through their training, engineers are given a unique skill set – a collection of knowledge and techniques that, when wielded by concerned, innovative and compassionate individuals, have the potential to change the world. As Jones articulates, “We all dream; it would be wonderful to see a kidney off the shelf. If you don't strive for these things they will never happen.”

(The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council SPARK (Students Promoting Awareness of Research Knowledge) program was launched in 1999 at 10 universities across Canada. Through SPARK, students with an aptitude for communications are recruited, trained and paid to write stories based on the NSERC supported research at participating universities.)