Thomas Boland, Ph.D.
Undergraduate Coordinator and
Associate Professor of Bioengineering
Associate Professor of Bioengineering
Ingenieur,
E.N.S.I.G.C., 1990 Toulouse
(France)
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, 1995 University of Washington
Ph.D. Chemical Engineering, 1995 University of Washington
Research Interests
Atomic
Force Microscopy
Protein and Cell Printing
Organ Printing
Biointerfaces
Protein and Cell Printing
Organ Printing
Biointerfaces
Email:
Office: 420 Rhodes Research Center
Phone: 864.656.7639
Office: 420 Rhodes Research Center
Phone: 864.656.7639
Honors, Awards, and Professional Activities
Director, Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institute, 2006Member, Clemson University Faculty Senate Member-at-large, AVS Biomaterial interfaces Division Founding Member, Academy of BioprintingMember, ASME Biomanufacturing Technical CommitteeKeynote Presenter, International Conference on Digital Fabrication Technologies, Sponsored by the 
Society for Imaging Science and Technology, 2007
Dr. Boland’s research was recently featured on the Discovery Channel’s program “2057” detailing whatlife will be like 50 years from now.Dr. Boland’s students have received many awards and scholarships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, the Materials Science Research Society Gold Award, second place in Health and Medicine category at the International Science and Engineering Fair, the Albany Medical College Award for Biomedical Research, and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance/Lemelson Foundation Award. 
Honors, Awards and Professional Activities Director, Bioengineering and Bioinformatics Summer Institute, 2006Member, Clemson University Faculty Senate Member-at-large, AVS Biomaterial interfaces Division Founding Member, Academy of BioprintingMember, ASME Biomanufacturing Technical CommitteeKeynote Presenter, International Conference on Digital Fabrication Technologies, Sponsored by the Society for Imaging Science and Technology, 2007 Invited Presenter, Bioprinting Conference and Exhibition, Kawasaki, Japan, 2006 Clemson University Trustee Award for Faculty Excellence, 2006Invited talk, 2nd International Conference on Epithelial Technologies and Tissue Engineering, 2006 sponsored by Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Singapore Invited Presenter, National Science Foundation World Technology Evaluation Center Advanced Manufacturing Research and Development Workshop, 2006 Invited Speaker,2nd International Conference on Advanced Research in Virtual and Rapid Prototyping (VRAP 2005), Leiria, Portugal Member, China Task Force, reporting directly to the President of Clemson UniversityKeynote Speaker, International Bioprinting and Biopatterning Workshop, 2005Invited Speaker, Biomanufacturing Workshop, Beijing, China, 2005Keynote Speaker, 8th Annual Meeting of Tissue Engineering Society International, Shanghai, China, 2005Keynote Speaker, Regenerate! Conference and Exhibition of the Tissue Engineering Society International, 2004Invited Speaker, Materials Research Society Fall Symposium, 2004Best of What's New Nomination, Popular Science Magazine, 2004Named one of Six Technologies that will change the world by Business 2.0 Magazine,2004Invited presentation at the workshop: Rapid Prototyping for Biomedical Applications - from implants to organ printing, Freiburg, Germany, 2002 Invited Presenter, Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Symposium organized by the National Institutes of Health Bioengineering consortium, 2000Dr. Boland’s research was recently featured on the Discovery Channel’s program “2057”detailing what life will be like 50 years from now.Dr. Boland’s students have received many awards and scholarships such as the National Science Foundation Graduate Student Fellowship, the Materials Science Research Society Gold Award, second place in Health and Medicine category at the International Scienceand Engineering Fair, the Albany Medical College Award for Biomedical Research, and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance/Lemelson Foundation Award
Current Research
Computer-Assisted Tissue Engineering
One
day modified printers
will be used to make
human skin for burn
victims and other
organs that are otherwise
not available due
to donor shortages. We
are leading in this
effort, also called
organ printing, which
aims at making three-dimensional
living tissue. For
most of this work
we are using modified
desktop printers
filled with suspensions
of cells instead
of ink. The printers
are adapted by washing
out the ink cartridges
and refilling them
with suspensions
cells. Several labs
can now print arrays
of DNA, or proteins,
but for tissue engineers,
the big challenge
is creating three-dimensional
structures.
Organ printing starts out using the same cell-cultivation technology that is currently used for skin grafting for example. A biopsy is taken from the patient’s healthy tissue and those cells are grown out and incubated, a process that can take a few weeks. The difference is in how the cells are assembled into the three-dimensional structure. Printing allows the direct placement of cells into dense tissue like constructs that don’t need much time to fill in.
Organ printing starts out using the same cell-cultivation technology that is currently used for skin grafting for example. A biopsy is taken from the patient’s healthy tissue and those cells are grown out and incubated, a process that can take a few weeks. The difference is in how the cells are assembled into the three-dimensional structure. Printing allows the direct placement of cells into dense tissue like constructs that don’t need much time to fill in.
Cell
Printing Hardware
and Software
We are developing the hardware and software components
to achieve placement of various cell types into a
soft scaffold according to a computer-aided design
(CAD) template using a single device. The
core of the technology is the cell printer, which
receives inputs in form of a CAD design, the different
cell types, the scaffold, and the various growth
factors needed for maturation. Variable
matrices need to be constructed that include drop
size, cell concentration, cell type, viscosity, and
others to be able to predictably deposit the desired
cells in the desired locations.
Printing
of Vasculature
Printing makes it easier to position cells, but
many other problems will have to be overcome before
entire organs can be printed. One such challenge
is supplying enough oxygen and nutrients to sustain
cells deep within the 3D structure. We think it
will be possible to print the entire network of
arteries, capillaries, and veins that nourish organs
layer by layer. This
can be completed within a couple of hours and a
growth medium circulated through the fragile new
vessels.
Printed vasculature (left) and a CAD file of vasculature (right).
Printed vasculature (left) and a CAD file of vasculature (right).
Recent Publications
T. Boland “Organ printing and translational tissue engineering” in: Translational Approaches in Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. Editors. Jeremy Mao, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, Antonios Mikos, Anthony Atala. Artech House (2006)
T. Boland “Organ printing: the role of drop-on-demand printers”, in: Virtual and Rapid prototyping in Medicine. Editors: Paulo Bartolo and Bopaya Bidanda, Springer, (2006)
Boland T., Cui X., Aho M., Baicu C., Zile M. “Image based Printing of structured biomaterials for realizing complex 3D cardiovascular constructs”, Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, 2006, in print
Boland T., Xu T., Damon B., Cui X. “Application of Inkjet Printing to Tissue Engineering”, Biotechnology J.,1, 910-917 (2006).
Xu, T. Xu, T. Gregory, C., Molnar, P., Cui, C., Jalota, S., Bhaduri, S. B., Boland, T. “Viability and Electrophysiology of Neural Cell Structures generated by the Inkjet Printing Method” Biomaterials, 27(19):3580-8 (2006).
Boland T., Xu T., Damon B. J., Manley B., Kesari P., Jolata S., Bhaduri S. “Drop-on-Demand Printing of Cells and materials for Designer Tissue Constructs”, Materials Science and Engineering C, 2006, in print
P. Kesari, Varghese D, Deshpande M, Xu T, Ohri S, Boland T. “Rapid prototyping of cells to engineer functional freeform structures” Journal of Controlled Release, (2006) submitted
