**** SEMINAR ANNOUNCEMENT ****

SPEAKER: Lori A. Setton, Ph.D.
Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Surgery
Duke University
Durham, North Carolina

TOPIC: Rational Approach to the Design of Hydrogels for Cartilage Repair

DATE: Tuesday, September 4, 2007

TIME: 3:30 p.m.

PLACE: 138 DeBartolo Hall

Biomaterials to promote cartilage regeneration are attractive for their potential to promote functional restoration of the damaged tissue. Restoration of cartilage “function” is a poorly defined and challenging design goal, however, as cartilage has important mechanical, biochemical and biological behaviors that are difficult to simultaneously target with any one strategy. Our laboratory is developing novel uses of statistical models to optimize biomaterial features for a successful cartilage regeneration outcome. One biomaterial of interest is a hydrogel composed from elastin-like polypeptides (ELP). These ELPs are monodisperse and precisely controlled through genetic encoding of amino acid sequence, molecular weight, and sites for controlled crosslinking. This talk will describe our experience with a genetically-engineered polypeptide hydrogel for restoration of tissue function specific to articular cartilage.