Week 3-Marsha

            The excitement of the week happened on Wednesday when the news station abc7 came to the lab to learn about the development of an artificial outer ear. Microtia is a congenital birth condition where a child is born missing part or all of one or both ears. In addition to hearing loss that can be associated with microtia the social implications of missing an ear can be emotionally scarring. This particular project is a collaboration between Dr. Bonassar at Cornell and Dr. Spector here at Weill Cornell. The video to the news story that aired can be found at the following link: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/health&id=9168249

The goal of the project is to create an artificial collagen ear that uses a patient’s own donor cells and is an exact replicate of their existing ear based on 3D imaging techniques. The current state of the project is a rat model where collagen is molded into a 3D ear shape and seeded with chondrocytes. The ear is then implanted into rats where the chondrocytes remodel it into native collagen with the same mechanical properties as a normal ear.

            Having the news station in the lab re-emphasized to me the necessity of being able to communicate science to lay audiences. Even though the reporter was a trained MD, she was not a scientist. Introducing the project such that we communicated its significance while still making it understandable was a challenge but crucial since the reporter was essentially a spokesperson for the lab. At this point, the artificial ear is a cosmetic improvement for microtia patients, but does not serve a hearing function. This is the same functionality as current ears constructed from rib tissue, but it has the same mechanical properties as a normal ear and does not require invasive surgery. As an engineer, and also after spending these past few weeks in the hospital these advantages are easy to comprehend. However, to the general public the absence of restoring hearing may make the advantages of the tissue-engineered ear less apparent. I don’t know if we were ever able to get our full story across but the main ideas were communicated. Often science policies are decided by non-scientists; therefore, it is important that we master the ability to communicate our research!

            In other lab news, the histology stain I have been waiting for arrived so staining is on the horizon. I hope to identify the composition of the extracellular matrix (ECM) that exists between smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells in an in-vitro vascular co-culture model. The cell scaffold is made of collagen and it is also suspected that the secreted ECM is collagen. Hopefully, using picosirius red we will successfully differentiate between Type I and Type III collagen to elucidate old and newly synthesized collagen.