U of T's bioengineering buzz
Michael Sefton’s team is pursuing the impossible at the IBBME.
If we could shape our jobs the way we would like them to be, most of us would prefer to report to as few people as possible.
Michael Sefton, on the other hand, likes having multiple bosses. In his role as the director of the University of Toronto’s Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME), Sefton reports to Tas Venetsanopoulos, dean of applied science and engineering, David Naylor, dean of medicine, and David Mock, dean of dentistry.
“Most people don’t think this model can work,” says Sefton. “In fact, most bioengineering programs in the United States are based only in the faculties of engineering. But because I report to all these deans directly, I can harness a lot of power and get a lot of things done that normally couldn’t be done. Having three of the leading faculties of their kinds actually working together means we can do a lot more than if we were working separately.”
Welcome to Michael Sefton’s multi- and interdisciplinary bio-world. Sefton is regularly acknowledged as one of the top minds in the brave new world of tissue engineering – his research into the complex challenge of growing a human heart in a laboratory is internationally renowned and last year he was named a University Professor, the highest honour U of T bestows on its faculty. But Sefton has also made his mark as team captain of a bioengineering group that ranks among the best on the planet.
IBBME was formed officially in 1999, as the result of a merger between the Institute of Biomedical Engineering, the Centre for Biomaterials and the tissue engineering group in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. But its roots actually go back to the early 1960s, when the Institute of Biomedical Electronics was created to tackle a new branch of engineering that would combine the engineering used in more traditional areas with research into the puzzles of human health.
“What was unique about the creation of this group back in 1962 was that it was born as a 50-50 partnership between engineering and medicine,” says Sefton. “From the beginning, the idea was to bring engineers and medical researchers into the same room to approach health research in a new way.” Shift forward 40 years and Sefton’s team is pursuing biomedical possibilities once thought impossible. “Even in the early 1980s, the ideas of repairing spinal cords using polymers or creating an artificial liver were considered off-the-wall. Now, we see these areas as having very real challenges, but possible enough that they are worth considering.”
In fact, Sefton looks at a biblical passage as the IBBME’s unofficial strategic goal: The lame shall walk and the blind shall see.
“That really embodies the possibilities we are investigating in biomedical research. And I think our people are literally putting this strategic goal into action.”
More than 30 U of T researchers are appointed as core faculty to the IBBME; approximately 40 more are cross-appointed. Sefton points to a few as examples of the cutting-edge work being conducted:
Moshe Eizenman of electrical and computer engineering and opthalmology has developed advanced eye-tracking systems that are used by universities and research institutes all over the world. He has also devised techniques that will provide patients who have macular degeneration (a common disease in the elderly that limits eyesight) the ability to use most computer programs.
Milos Popovic of the Rehabilitation Engineering Laboratory has been successful in using functional electrical stimulation to enable people with spinal cord injuries to use their hands and possibly walk again.
Molly Shoichet of chemical engineering and applied chemistry has made headlines for her advances in spinal cord regeneration and material design, including a recent innovation that could significantly speed the rate of bone healing.
Ross Ethier of mechanical and industrial engineering and ophthalmology is conducting breakthrough work in glaucoma research (see page 12 of this issue).
Kim Woodhouse is working with John Semple of Sunnybrook and Women’s College Health Sciences Centre, Sefton and Shoichet in the Advanced Regenerative Tissue Engineering Centre, which will tackle the most difficult problems in tissue engineering.
Willie Wong, an IBBME graduate and faculty member in electrical and computer engineering, is working with people who have hearing impairments through the IBBME’s Sensory Communication Lab.
Strength in the hot nanotechnology field with talented young scientists such as Warren Chan (who Sefton calls the “only card-carrying biomedical nanotechnologist in Canada”), molecular imaging expert Chris Yip, Steve Davies, a specialist in gene circuits and Kevin Truong, a structural biologist.
Peter Zandstra and William Stanford and “rising star” Julie Audet form what Sefton believes is the “only stem cell bioengineering team in North America. Everyone is after them.” Sefton feels the institute’s culture of encouraging contribution between projects enhances the knowledge that is created.
“Interdisciplinarity is key to bioengineering research,” he says. “It used to be that this field involved the application of engineering to solving medical problems. But now, it is all about the integration of the physical sciences, medicine and biology. And this integration is beginning to have all the hallmarks of a discipline unto itself, with its own culture and beliefs.”
It is also a discipline that people are clamouring to join. “There’s a buzz on the floor here and I think among universities across North America that U of T is serious about innovation in this field. That makes it more feasible for us to recruit the best faculty and students who want to come here.”
Sefton is eagerly looking forward to the opening of the Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research (CCBR) on the St. George campus in 2005. “The CCBR will really give us a boost in terms of excellent research space for our people. And the plan with CCBR has always been to create a research facility without walls, so that our interdisciplinary nature can blossom even further.”
The CCBR will also be a key factor in helping Sefton in what he believes is his key role at the IBBME – building one of the world’s top bioengineering communities by recruiting great people.
“To be a leading research enterprise, you need spectacular people. This is how the IBBME has come so far. We are deliberate and competitive in hiring brilliant young people. In the past few years, we have hired among the best young minds in North America in leading-edge areas. We have to keep doing this. It’s essential for medicine and biomedical engineering, but more importantly, it is essential for humanity.”