CMTM Researcher Wins Prestigious NSF CAREER Award

Six Boston University researchers have received Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to advance their work.  One of them is CMTM faculty Michael Albro for his project on “Generating New Tissue for Arthritis Sufferers.”

The prestigious, highly competitive NSF CAREER awards mark a significant achievement for early-career scientists and come with five years of continuous funding.  All the researchers receiving funding this year are also laying the foundation for the next generation of scientists and diversifying their fields by supporting students and youth educational programs.

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, affects about 600 million people worldwide, with very few treatment options. Michael Albro, a BU College of Engineering assistant professor of mechanical engineering, is developing an advanced method of tissue engineering to repair joint and tissue damage from degenerative diseases like arthritis. His project focuses on growth factors, specialized molecules that coordinate tissues and organ growth in the body.  “Growth factors conduct the whole orchestra of the body,” Albro says.

Although they have been increasingly explored for tissue regeneration, delivering growth factors to cells is a complicated process that has proved hard to control.  Albro’s goal is to create a new approach using scaffolds—a material embedded with engineered cells that delivers growth factors.  He and his team are also testing computer models to tailor scaffolds to specific cells and improve the process overall.  “What we’re trying to do is not just identify the growth factors that need to be used for tissue regeneration, but also identify how they need to be delivered,” he says.