Articles
All articles on the site, from the biology of bone and heart muscle to teaching bioelectricity and talking about biotech in public.
The articles can be read in any order. If you are new to the subject, the pieces on bone and heart tissue are a good place to begin: they introduce the scaffolds, cells and bioreactors that come up again in the other texts. The bioelectricity outline is more technical and suits readers with some background in physics or engineering, while the notes on building with biology and on science communication look at the wider picture – materials grown rather than manufactured, and how to explain all of this to people outside the laboratory. The reading list collects reference books and journals for anyone who wants to go further.
Growing Bone in the Lab
How scaffolds, stem cells and bioreactors are combined to build living bone grafts, and why the field is harder than it looks.
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Engineering Heart Tissue
Heart muscle does not regrow after a heart attack. Engineered cardiac tissue is being developed both as a future repair material and, already today, as a model for testing drugs.
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Bioelectricity: A Course Outline
Many cells in the body respond to electrical signals, and the body itself generates electricity every second. A sketch of how an introductory course on the subject can be structured.
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Building with Biology
Cells as a construction material: from bioprinted tissue to grown leather and fungal bricks, and the questions this raises for design, industry and society.
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Talking About Biotech
Short talks, public lectures and school visits: practical notes on explaining tissue engineering to audiences who are not specialists.
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Further Reading
Journals, reference books and open resources for anyone who wants to go deeper into tissue engineering and bioelectricity.
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