Dr. Cato T. Laurencin
is the Lillian T. Pratt Distinguished Professor and Chair of
Orthopaedic Surgery and Professor of Biomedical Engineering
and Chemical Engineering at the University of Virginia. In addition,
Dr. Laurencin has the honor of being named one of only 15 University
Professors at the school. Dr. Laurencin’s research interest
is primarily focused on musculoskeletal diseases and conditions.
His research encompasses the areas of musculoskeletal tissue
engineering, polymer synthesis, developing controlled drug delivery
devices for treating musculoskeletal sarcoma and nanotechnology.
One of the focuses of Dr. Laurencin’s research is to develop
off the shelf tissues for the repair/restoration of musculoskeletal
tissue using the principles of tissue engineering. Dr. Laurencin
has developed novel microsphere based three dimensional (3-D)
matrices from biodegradable polymers as scaffolds for bone tissue
engineering. The beneficial effects of dynamic culture condition
versus static culture of osteoblasts on developing 3-D tissue
constructs using these scaffolds in bioreactor has been recently
demonstrated by him. Dr. Laurencin’s research in the area
of musculoskeletal tissue engineering has led to new insights
into how fine tuning of matrix and culture parameters could
promote the development of off the shelf tissue. Another focus
area of Dr. Laurencin’s research is to design and synthesis
novel biodegradable polymers for medical application. Novel
biodegradable polymers (polyphosphazenes and polyanhydrides)
are currently under development in his laboratory. For the treatment
of musculoskeletal sarcoma, Dr. Laurencin is using a synergistic
approach of radiation therapy along with local controlled delivery
of radiosensitizing/chemotherapeutic agents such as Taxol. The
efficacy of this treatment modality for Ewing’s Sarcoma
and Prostate Cancer has been demonstrated in animal models.
Nanotechnology is another area of research where he is developing
nanospheres and nanofibers of biodegradable polymers for tissue
engineering and drug delivery applications.
