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Melissa Tate
Melissa Tate
Paul Trainor Chair of Biomedical Engineering

Interview with Melissa Tate

Fabric as protective tissue

Melissa Tate, a well-known scientist currently at the University of New South Wales in Australia, and her team of researchers have woven a fabric that mimics the protective tissue of bones. Tate spoke to Savita Verma about the confluence of biomedical engineering and textiles.

Describing Professor Melissa L  Knothe Tate-who along with her team have successfully woven a fabric which mimics the protective tissue enclosing bones called periosteum-just as a scientist will be inadequate since she is much more that that. That women often do not reach the heights in science as men do and that indigenous populations are often ignored and do not get their share in development, make her uneasy. As a scientist, Tate has worked on varied topics ranging from fundamental cell biology to regenerative technologies with an aim to translate these into applications to benefit patients. She has been a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, the American Society for Mechanical Engineers and the Biomedical Engineering Society. Her new work in weaving a smart fabric has led to hopes for producing protective clothing and generating tearing joints in the future. Earlier, she has been instrumental in developing an implantable device which mimics the natural regenerative capabilities of periosteum. In trials with sheep, this device has been shown to hasten bone repair. Currently, Paul Trainor Chair of Biomedical Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Australia, Tate speaks about her work and issues that are of concern to her.


TT: Is it correct to call the new material a fabric ready to be used for clothing?

The material can be used for clothing, wearables (multifunctional devices that interact with the body, typically when worn on the body) and next generation implants that are wearables for the inside of the body so to speak.

 
TT: Your team has produced a material that mimics the body tissue covering bones. How did you get interested in this research? How long have you been working on this?

I have been studying the inner workings of the body since I was a child. As an undergraduate at Stanford University, I had the opportunity to join a research group of an orthopaedic pioneer at Stanford, Professor Dennis Carter. Having read all of Darwin, D'Arcy Thompson and Stephen Jay Gould's work I could get my hands on, working in the lab just fed my appetite to know how cells could be so smart even though they are brainless. I have been extremely fortunate to find stimulating and supportive environments and mentors who enabled me to grow intellectually and to constantly question things, such as Professor Stephan Perren, my mentor at the AO Research Institute in Davos, and Professor Peter Niederer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

TT: What was the challenge in producing this material?

The biggest challenge is reducing a big concept to a series of hands on tasks to "reduce the concept to practice". This is the difference between being a visionary and being an inventor. Both are important steps in creating so called "disruptive technologies" that open up new markets.

TT: Could you elaborate on how this development will help in generating protective clothing? Will there be some modifications needed in the material?

The material can be made from threads as diverse as titanium or the silk of the golden orb spider. Depending on the pattern and composition of the textiles, we can make fabrics that become incredibly tough under impact loads or materials that never develop residual stresses.

TT: What difference will it make to the way protective clothing is currently seen?

We aim to emulate natural tissues that exhibit support and protective functions in novel ways. For example, the periosteum is super-stretchy and soft if you tug on it gently. If you remove the soft sheath from a bone and load that bone until it breaks, it will break at a much lower force without the periosteum. This means that the soft sheath of the periosteum confers super-strength to our relatively hard bones.

TT: I understand these artificial fibres are made up of an elastic material and silk. What is this elastic material and how did you choose these two?

The material can be manufactured from any material exhibiting gradients of elasticity and toughness, mimicking elastin and collagen. In fact, the material can be tuned for very specific applications, for example in the medical, transport or sports sectors.

TT: Have there been interests from the industry or talks of collaboration?

Yes, we have a number of industry partners interested in collaborating and/or licensing our technology.

TT: Do you see any use for common people?

Definitely! But I can't talk more about that right now. In any case, we aim to reach rather common markets with surprisingly smart textiles.

TT: Please elaborate also about its medical usage.

We are working on a medical project, developing implants that mimic the periosteum, which happens also to be a habitat for stem cells. These are what we call next generation implants that perform multiple functions to promote healing.

TT: How does it help in deep vein thrombosis?

We hypothesise that our textiles that naturally harness movement to create pressure gradients will serve well to prevent DVTs.

TT: What work you are gearing to take up after this achievement?

Right now, our work is set out for us and we will be busy with it for quite some time. However, I always have a number of major projects going on simultaneously and we are gearing up for our first design exhibition.

TT: What is the potential usage of regenerative technologies you have been working on?

We were the first to show that stem cells from the periosteum of aged individuals undergoing hip replacements provide a great source of potentially bankable stem cells. Unlike banking of cord blood and perinatal tissues at birth, we aim to find best practices to bank periosteum for regenerative therapies. This would be particularly useful for those born a generation too late to bank their own umbilical cord blood.

Published on: 06/03/2017

DISCLAIMER: All views and opinions expressed in this column are solely of the interviewee, and they do not reflect in any way the opinion of technicaltextile.net.


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