OITE-BIG: Bioengineering – bridging the gap between basic research and clinical translation

Abstract: The origins of modern science began with the field of natural philosophy, a primarily observational framework aimed at understanding how our world works. Modern mechanistic biology seeks to fill in the puzzle pieces of these phenomena down to the cells, proteins, and molecules that make up our bodies. Here at the National Institutes of Health, a core part of our mission is to take these findings and be able to apply them in a translational manner. In order to translate these findings, we are constantly requiring new tools to deliver therapeutics, detect different diseases, and understand more about human health and diseases. This talk will focus on the role of bioengineering in bridging the gap between the bench and the bedside, with examples of our lab’s research on immunoengineering and highlighting the builders, the architects, the inventors, the creators that help make science fiction into science fact.

Bio: Dr. Kaitlyn Sadtler is a scientist and Chief of the Section on Immuno-Engineering at the National Institutes of Health. She began her lab at the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Department of Chemical Engineering working on the molecular mechanisms of immune activation in the foreign body response. She completed her Ph.D. at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine where she showed a critical role for immune cells in biomaterial-mediated muscle regeneration. Her research has been published in journals such as Science, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, Nature Materials, and Science Translational Medicine. She was recognized as a TED Fellow and delivered a TED talk that was listed as one of the top-viewed talks of 2018. Dr. Sadtler was selected for the Forbes 30 Under 30 List in Science, the MIT Technology Review 35 Innovators Under 35, the National Academy of Engineering Frontiers of Engineering Program, and the World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders. She also received Outstanding Recent Graduate Award from Johns Hopkins University and an honorary doctorate from her undergraduate university, UMBC. Since starting her laboratory at the NIH, Dr. Sadtler has lent her lab’s expertise to the fight against COVID-19, launching the NIH Serologic Survey, detecting 16.8 million undiagnosed SARS-CoV-2 infections in the US via remote blood sampling and antibody testing. She continues her work on immunoengineering in the context of traumatic injury focusing on the balance of tolerance and autoimmunity during tissue reconstruction.

American Sign Language interpreting services, CART services, and other reasonable accommodations are available upon request. Individuals who need interpreting services and/or other reasonable accommodations to participate in this event should contact OITE at oite@nih.gov or the NIH Interpreting Office directly at nih@ainterpreting.com. Requests should be made at least five business days in advance, when possible, in order to ensure interpreter availability.