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Perfusion prize to focus on tissue research

by Dick Peterson
Public Relations
Sculpt a prize and they will come. At least that’s the way Vladimir Mironov, Ph.D., has it planned. 

Mironov, a Department of Cell Biology and Anatomy researcher, has organized the Charles Lindbergh Symposium to be held Feb. 4 at MUSC, celebrating the 100th birthday of the inventor of an “artificial heart,” the first of its kind designed to pump essential nutrients and oxygen through living human tissue. 

The Lindbergh-Carrel Prize, which is a sculpted conception of Lindbergh’s pump to focus public attention on perfusion science, will be awarded during the symposium to three of nine prize laureates, all pioneers in perfusion and tissue bioengineering. The remaining prizes will be awarded in April and June.

To receive the prize Feb. 4 are Theodore Malinin, M.D., of the University of Miami, Fla., Gail Naughton, Ph.D., of La Jolla, Calif., and Bernhard Palsson, Ph.D., of the University of California, San Diego.

Created by Italian sculpture designer Carlo Zoli, the Lindbergh-Carrel Prize incorporates the original pump design with the standing female form indicating a union of machine and body to sustain life. Nicknamed “Elisabeth,” the sculpture is reminiscent of the sister of Lindbergh’s wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, and the reason for Lindbergh’s interest in the heart pump.

Elisabeth Morrow died of heart disease. At that time in the early 1930s, medical technology could not provide an artificial heart pump that would substitute for a heart during surgery. After Elisabeth’s death, Lindbergh, who is better known for his 1927 transatlantic solo flight from New York to Paris, developed the device with French-born surgeon and biologist Alexis Carrel. Carrel was known for his research in keeping organs alive outside the body.

Other prize laureates to speak at Lindbergh commemorative events later this year are Judah Folkman of Harvard University, Robert Nerem of Georgia Technical University, Joseph Vacanti of Harvard, Robert Langer of MIT, Michael DeBakey of Baylor University and Wei-Shou Hu of the University of Minnesota.

Mironov said his goal in organizing the symposium and commissioning the prize commemorating Charles A. Lindbergh’s heart pump is to bring national attention to biomedical scientists who work on the tissue level. 

“Anatomy is no longer a static science,” Mironov said. “The discovery of stem cells has reinvented a classical microscopical anatomy—a tissue biology science, which is now again a vibrant, booming discipline. It no longer considers tissue a static, solid structure, but rather as elastoviscous, constantly renewing its dynamic community of cells and extracellular matrix.” 

In the labs and on the near horizon are perfusion and bioengineering techniques to keep transplant organs alive and fresh longer, procedures to shrink a malignant tumor by blocking its blood supply, and plans to grow human organs with the careful manipulation of stem cells.

“This is reality,” Mironov said. “This is not molecular genetics with a hope for results 50 years from now. This is real research with real results today. People ought to know about it, and they ought to know that this research is going on right here at MUSC in Charleston, South Carolina.”

The Charles Lindbergh Symposium will be held Feb. 4 in Room 656 of the Basic Science Building. For further information call Mironov at 792-7630.
 

Charles Lindbergh Symposium

Theodore Malinin, M.D., director of the Tissue Bank and Lindbergh Pump Museum at the University of Miami, Fla., is co-author of a publication with Charles Lindbergh on perfused bioreactor technology, and authored a book about Alexis Carrel. He is also a pioneer in the tissue bank business.

Gail Naughton, Ph.D., is president and CEO of Advanced Tissue Sciences Inc., La Jolla, Calif., a world leader in tissue engineering. Naughton is a pioneer of industrial tissue engineering, woman innovator of the year and leader in bioreactor technologies for industrial tissue engineering.

Berhard Palsson, Ph.D., professor, Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, is an inventor of hollow fiber perfused bioreactor technology for propagation of stem cells and is a pioneer in the mathematical modeling of circuit systems and in silico biology.