UC Merced professor to speak on “Cardiovascular Stem Cell Engineering” at MJC
(Modesto, CA) –The Modesto Area Partners in Science (MAPS) will offer a presentation entitled “Cardiovascular Stem Cell Engineering” by Kara E. McCloskey, Ph.D., founding and associate professor for the School of Engineering at University of California, Merced. The free public MAPS event will be held on Friday, January 30, at 7:30 p.m. in Sierra Hall 132 on the Modesto Junior College West Campus, and is intended for people over 12 years of age.
Kara McCloskey will discuss how her laboratory team is using stem cells to learn about the development of biological tissues, with the goal of generating functional stem cell-derived cardiac and vascular tissue in vitro. She will also cover the general background of stem cell sourcing, as well as cell differentiation and techniques for tissue engineering of cardiovascular materials.
Regenerative medicine is a branch of biomedical engineering that seeks to understand how to replace or regenerate human cells, tissues or organs so that, perhaps, damaged tissues and organs can be engineered to repair themselves by stimulating the body’s own repair mechanisms. Stem cells hold promise as cell sources for a variety of applications in regenerative medicine, but are also an in vitro model for studying tissue development.
McCloskey and her team emphasize the combination of a variety of interdisciplinary technologies to advance the development of complex native-like tissues. These techniques include lab-on-a-chip designs, decellularized matrices, hydrogel cell encapsulation and cell sheet engineering.
For more information about the MAPS program visit the website http://maps.events.mjc.edu/, the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/pages/Modesto-Area-Partners-in-Science/244618054801 or contact MJC Professor Noah Hughes at 575-6800 or hughesn@mjc.edu<mailto:hughesn@mjc.edu>.
