Applying Industrial Engineering to Regenerative Medicine Research

摘要

The Industrial and Systems Engineering department at North Carolina State University is in collaboration with Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine (WFIRM) to apply industrial engineering principles and methods to the field of regenerative medicine. The goal of this collaboration is to improve the process of translating scientific research into commercial manufacturing. Researchers have spent time at WFIRM to studying two projects: tissue engineered ears and muscle progenitor cells. The initial approach was to use IDEF modeling, a classic industrial engineering tool, to map the flow of information, materials, and products through the production process. A critical issue in translating tissue engineered ears to a commercial product is the variability in the process which greatly affects the cell growth rate. The cell isolation and proliferation process is especially critical because it involves living cells, which inherently will have variability due to the unique nature of the cells. Several variables that introduce process variability have been identified, and preliminary experiments have been completed. The ability to produce a consistent quality tissue engineered ear will be required in order to meet FDA regulations for both preclinical and clinical studies and will accelerate the availability of safe and economical tissue engineered products.