Grand Challenges at the Interface of Engineering and Medicine

Over the past two decades Biomedical Engineering has emerged as a major discipline that bridges societal needs of human health care with the development of novel technologies. Every medical institution is now equipped at varying degrees of sophistication with the ability to monitor human health in both non-invasive and invasive modes. The multiple scales at which human physiology can be interrogated provide a profound perspective on health and disease. We are at the nexus of creating "avatars" (herein defined as an extension of "digital twins") of human patho/physiology to serve as paradigms for interrogation and potential intervention. Motivated by the emergence of these new capabilities, the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, the Departments of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and Bioengineering at University of California at San Diego sponsored an interdisciplinary workshop to define the grand challenges that face biomedical engineering and the mechanisms to address these challenges. The Workshop identified five grand challenges with cross-cutting themes and provided a roadmap for new technologies, identified new training needs, and defined the types of interdisciplinary teams needed for addressing these challenges. The themes presented in this paper include: 1) accumedicine through creation of avatars of cells, tissues, organs and whole human; 2) development of smart and responsive devices for human function augmentation; 3) exocortical technologies to understand brain function and treat neuropathologies; 4) the development of approaches to harness the human immune system for health and wellness; and 5) new strategies to engineer genomes and cells.

Centennial Review: History and husbandry recommendations for raising Pekin ducks in research or commercial production

By some accounts, ducks were domesticated between 400 and 10,000 yr ago and have been a growing portion of the poultry industry for decades. Ducks specifically, and waterfowl in general, have unique health, housing, nutrition and welfare concerns compared to their galliform counterparts. Although there have been many research publications in regards to health, nutrition, behavior, and welfare of ducks there have been very few reviews to provide an overview of these numerous studies, and only one text has attempted to review all aspects of the duck industry, from breeders to meat ducks. This review covers incubation, hatching, housing, welfare, nutrition, and euthanasia and highlights the needs for additional research at all levels of duck production. The purpose of this review is to provide guidelines to raise and house ducks for research as specifically related to industry practices.

Abstract 1521: Hypoxia inducible factor is an important regulator of metastatic niche formation

An increasing number of studies have reported that primary tumors facilitate metastasis by directing bone marrow cells (BMC) to prime metastatic sites. Intratumoral hypoxia promotes metastasis through the stabilization of hypoxia-inducible factors (HIF1α and HIF2α), which upregulate a variety of genes crucial to cancer progression. It has been recently reported that hypoxic tumors induce lysyl oxidase (LOX), an amine oxidase that cross-links collagen and elastin in extracellular matrices, which is fundamental to metastatic niche formation. There are 4 other highly conserved members of the LOX family: lysyl oxidase like 1-4 (LOXL1-4). We found that different LOX members were induced by hypoxia in different human breast cancer cell lines, consistent with the unique expression pattern of LOX members in individual breast cancer patients. LOX and LOXL4 were markedly upregulated by hypoxia in MDA-MB-231 cells whereas LOXL2 was upregulated by hypoxia in MDA-MB-435 cells at the mRNA and protein levels. Hypoxic induction of various LOX members was abolished when HIF is genetically silenced or pharmacologically inhibited by HIF inhibitors acriflavine or digoxin (DIG). By microrheology and confocal imaging of collagen, we found that conditioned medium from hypoxic breast cancer cells increased collagen crosslinking compared to non-hypoxic conditioned medium. This effect was lost when HIF is knocked down. Also, we found an increase of BMC invasion through matrigel pretreated with conditioned medium from hypoxic MDA-MB-231 and MDA-MB-435 cells as compared to non-hypoxic cells. This induction was abrogated when HIF was genetically or pharmacologically inhibited. Importantly, pharmacologic (daily DIG intraperitoneal injection) or genetic inhibition of HIF in breast cancer cells significantly reduced lung metastasis and recruitment of CD11b+ BMCs to the lungs in an orthotopic implantation model. Fewer cross-linked collagen fibers were observed in the lungs of tumor-bearing mice when HIF was inhibited. Knockdown of LOX or LOXL4 in MDA-MB-231 and knockdown of LOXL2 in MDA-MB-435 cells recapitulated the results from HIF inhibition. Knockdown of LOX members in the cell lines suppressed hypoxia-induced collagen remodeling, BMC invasion in vitro, and CD11b+ recruitment to lungs in vivo. In conclusion, HIF induced secretion of multiple LOX members by primary breast cancers induces collagen remodeling and facilitates BMC recruitment to the lungs, leading to increased metastasis. Antibodies or small molecule inhibitors of LOX do not inhibit all family members. In contrast, HIF, the key determinant of LOX family expression, serves as an attractive chemotherapeutic target to inhibit niche formation and subsequent metastasis.

Citation Format: {Authors}. {Abstract title} [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2011 Apr 2-6; Orlando, FL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2011;71(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 1521. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2011-1521