Posted on March 3: Engineering better body parts

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/Sheardown_Science.jpg” caption=”Heather Sheardown”]Off the shelf body parts. Man-made hearts, livers, corneas and blood vessels  replacement organs and tissues ready to implant into the body.

The exciting new fields of biomaterials and tissue engineering will make these advancements in health care a new reality. Chemical engineering professor Heather Sheardown will discuss The Role of the Engineer in Health Care at Tuesday night's Science in the City lecture, the third of six lectures sponsored jointly by McMaster University and the Hamilton Spectator.

In an interview with the Hamilton Spectator, Sheardown explains, “I've always been very interested in the body and the medical aspects of engineering, understanding the biological system and then using that. That's really what engineers do  understand what's going on and then translating that into something that can be used.”

Sheardown is currently working on two projects in her lab that involve replacement systems for two very different types of tissues: blood vessels and corneas. Her talk will focus on how these tissues can be engineered, the background into the rationale and need for these tissues, and some recent developments from her laboratory here at McMaster.

The lecture will be held at the Spectator Auditorium, 44 Frid Street in Hamilton. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the lecture begins at 7 p.m. The lecture is free and open to the public.