Fast Forward the Future
Stem cells enable marriage between regenerative medicine and biomedical engineering.
Over the past decade, our understanding of how stem cells work has increased tremendously, opening up the possibility of cures to devastating diseases. However, to turn this promise into real applications, we need to overcome one important hurdle: how to convince stem cells to do what we need them to do in the right place at the right time.
Enter biomedical engineering, a field with expertise that can direct cell behaviour, either by engineering new functions
within the cells themselves, or by building devices in which biology and technology interact in unprecedented ways.
Engineering cells requires an understanding of how they work. Understanding the mechanisms that make specific cells tick will allow us to rearrange them in favourable ways and to control cell behaviour for clinical applications.
The best example of this is the modification of T-cells to recognize and kill tumour cells, commonly known as chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cells. While CAR T-cells are revolutionising cancer therapy, other powerful approaches, such as cells that prevent immune cell misbehaviour, or hybrids devices incorporating engineered cells and manufactured components to treat diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, are a source of hope for millions of people.
Excitingly, all of this and more is going on in BC, and is helping build a foundation for biotechnology leadership in Canada and across the world. Partnerships between organizations such as the British Columbia Regenerative Medicine (BCRegMed) initiative, the UBC School of Biomedical Engineering, and others, such as the Creative Destruction Lab-West, are creating an environment that facilitates the rapid deployment of new discoveries, and promise that there’s much more to look forward to in the near future, both in terms of medical advances and economic growth.