Attendees: G. Abbi, S. Bhatia, S. Chien, R. Cosan, B.Craig, D.Cuplin, I. Famili, D. Gough, E. Hickman, G. König, I. Lorenzen-Schmidt, J. Miller, J. Nathanson, B. Patel, J. Penhune, M. Radomsky, A. Ratcliffe, M.Sekins, G. Schmid-Schönbein, S. Subramaniam

Approval of Minutes from 10/21/99 meeting: Approved as submitted.

Presentation on the NASA KC-135 Student Flight Program Project:
Four Bioengineering undergraduate students, Gaurav Abbi, Gerhardt König, Jason Nathanson, and Bhavin Patel a.k.a Team Oreo, have been chosen to participate in a NASA, Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, KC-135 Student Flight Program. Team Oreo, working in conjunction with the California Space Institute (CalSpace) and the California Space Grant Consortium at UCSD, are one of 49 teams selected by NASA on the basis of a series of criteria, including the scientific merit of their experiment. NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program sends teams of students up more than 30,000 feet aboard a KC-135A aircraft, where students can take advantage of the reduced-gravity environment to conduct their scientific experiments. Gerhart Gönig commented that, "Projects like this give us the opportunity to apply the concepts we learn in class by actually creating a working device from scratch."
Team Oreo has worked with Dr. John Frangos, Professor of Bioengineering, to design an experiment that involves modeling fluid shifts that occur when the body enters a reduced-gravity environment. Such a model may prove beneficial for the development of countermeasures for this fluid shift, which may impact the bone loss and cardiovascular problems associated with space flight.
Team Oreo gave a brief description of their experiment and design apparatus. In reduced gravity body fluids redistribute according to the available volume they have to expand. This redistribution of fluids causes an increase in the volume of blood in the upper thorax and the cranial region. The cardiovascular baroreceptors located above the heart incorrectly sense a sudden increase in overall blood volume and initiate complex physiological responses that have ramifications on all the major regulatory systems. One response is a gradual but significant fluid loss. Team Oreo's experimental apparatus contains four chambers, which represent the specific regions of the brain, chest, abdominal and legs. Their apparatus is aimed at accurately simulating the same relative fluid shifts between specific regions of the body as have been shown during orbital missions. Their ultimate goal is to design, build, and test such a model aboard NASA's KC-135A reduced gravity aircraft.
On February 26, the Team Oreo will travel to Houston for two weeks of preparation and training. The program includes brief astronaut training, including the experience of sitting in a chamber that simulates the effect of running out of oxygen at 25,000 feet. On March 6-11, Team Oreo will test their experiment aboard the KC-135.

Presentation on Microscale Tissue Engineering:
Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia, Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, gave an outstanding presentation on her work in Microscale Tissue Engineering. Dr. Bhatia's research group is called the Microscale Tissue Engineering Laboratory (MTEL). The goal of the MTEL is to manipulate and study the role of the microenvironment around individual cells. In particular, the MTEL has focused their research in two areas: (1) developing enabling microfabrication-based tools to control the cellular microenvironment (BioMEMS), and (2) using these tools to study the structure/function relationship of the liver (Hepatic Tissue Engineering).
BioMEMS (Biological Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems):
In this area, our efforts have focused on the development of microtechnology for cell biology research and tissue engineering applications. Projects include:
· Formation of micro-bioreactors that both customize cell-surface interactions and allow for efficient mass transfer between cells and a perfused fluid stream.
· Optoelectronic methods to reversibly localize cells for use in cell-based biosensors and tissue engineering (In collaboration with S. Esener).
· Control of cell-surface interactions through microfluidic and photolithographic localization of adhesive and non-adhesive molecules on 'biocompatible' materials.
Hepatic Tissue Engineering:
The liver acinus, the functional unit of the liver, is a complex, highly-vascular, repeating structure- hepatocytes interact with other hepatocytes, a fenestrated endothelium, stellate (Ito) cells, extracellular matrix, and the blood stream. Using microfabrication techniques, they study the effects of the tissue microenvironment on the hepatocyte phenotype in vitro, for applications in cell-based therapies. Microenvironmental factors of interest include: cell-cell interactions (homotypic and heterotypic), cell-extracellular matrix interactions (planar vs 3-D presentation), shear stress, and oxygen tension. In addition, the role of these stimuli in the development of tissue-like structures is being investigated using hepatocyte/hydrogel constructs. Understanding the microenvironmental cues necessary to maximize hepatocyte function will aid bioartificial liver reactor design and minimize the required number of cells in these devices.

Update on Graduate Student Current Events:
Iman Famili gave a brief update on the Bioengineering Graduate Students' current events. Ms. Famili thanked those members of the board that attended the highly successful Breakfast with Industry in October 1999. She also reminded the members of the March 4, 2000, Graduate Student Research Symposium. The board members discussed ways of publicizing the event to increase the number of industry representatives that attend the event. Dr. Craig gave the excellent idea of advertising the Symposium in the BIOCOM weekly email.

Introduction of New Members of the Industrial Advisory Board:
Dr. Chien introduced Dr. Michael Radomsky of EPIcyte Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Radomsky has taken Dr. Robert Leach's position on the Board. Dr. Chien welcomed Dr. Radomsky and thanked him for joining the Board.
Update of Powell-Focht Bioengineering Building:
Dr. Chien gave a brief description of the progress of the new building. The new building is progressing very well and is currently in the working drawing phase. There will be a ground-breaking event on August 9, 2000. Dr. Chien gave an update on the progress of the fund raising for the Y.C. Fung Auditorium which will be part of the new building. The Department together with the Dean's office has nearly matched the most generous gift of $150K donated by Dr. and Mrs. Ernest Huang of San Diego. Dr. Chien again thanked those members who generously gave to this meaningful cause.

The next Industrial Advisory Board Meeting will be May 4, 2000 from 7:30a.m. - 9:00a.m.

Respectfully submitted: Elizabeth Hickman