How we could teach our bodies to heal faster

What if you could take a pill or a vaccine

and, just like getting over a cold,

you could heal your wounds faster.

Today, if we have
an operation or an accident,

we're in the hospital for weeks,

and often left with scars
and painful side effects

of our inability to regenerate
or regrow healthy, uninjured organs.

I work to create materials

that instruct our immune system to give us
the signals to grow new tissues.

Just like vaccines instruct
our body to fight disease,

we could instead instruct
our immune system

to build tissues

and more quickly heal wounds.

Now, regrowing body parts out of nowhere
might seem like magic,

but there are several organisms
that can achieve this feat.

Some lizards can regrow their tails,

the humble salamander
can completely regenerate their arm,

and even us mere humans
can regrow our liver

after losing more than half
of its original mass.

To make this magic
a bit closer to reality,

I'm investigating how our body
can heal wounds and build tissue

through instructions
from the immune system.

From a scrape on your knee
to that annoying sinus infection,

our immune system defends
our body from danger.

I'm an immunologist,

and by using what I know
about our body's defense system,

I was able to identify key players

in our fight to build back
our cuts and bruises.

When looking at materials
that are currently being tested

for their abilities to help regrow muscle,

our team noticed that after treating
an injured muscle with these materials,

there was a large number of immune cells

in that material and
the surrounding muscle.

So in this case, instead of
the immune cells

rushing off towards infection
to fight bacteria,

they're rushing towards an injury.

I discovered a specific
type of immune cell,

the helper T cell,

was present inside
that material that I implanted

and absolutely critical for wound healing.

Now, just like when you were a kid
and you'd break your pencil

and try and tape it back together again,

we can heal,

but it might not be
in the most functional way,

and we'll get a scar.

So if we don't have these helper T cells,

instead of healthy muscle,

our muscle develops
fat cells inside of it,

and if there's fat in our muscle,
it isn't as strong.

Now, using our immune system,

our body could grow back
without these scars

and look like what it was
before we were even injured.

I'm working to create materials

that give us the signals
to build new tissue

by changing the immune response.

We know that any time a material
is implanted in our body,

the immune system will respond to it.

This ranges from pacemakers
to insulin pumps

to the materials that engineers are using
to try and build new tissue.

So when I place that material,
or scaffold, in the body,

the immune system creates
a small environment of cells and proteins

that can change the way
that our stem cells behave.

Now, just like the weather
affects our daily activities,

like going for a run

or staying inside and binge-watching
an entire TV show on Netflix,

the immune environment of a scaffold

affects the way that
our stem cells grow and develop.

If we have the wrong signals,

say the Netflix signals,

we get fat cells instead of muscle.

These scaffolds are made
of a variety of different things,

from plastics to naturally
dried materials,

nanofibers of varying thicknesses,

sponges that are more or less porous,

gels of different stiffnesses.

And researchers can even
make the materials

release different signals over time.

So in other words, we can orchestrate
this Broadway show of cells

by giving them the correct
stage, cues and props,

that can be changed for different tissues.

Just like a producer would change the set

for "Les Mis" versus
"Little Shop of Horrors,"

I'm combining specific types of signals

that mimic how our body responds to injury
to help us regenerate.

In the future, we could see
a scar-proof band-aid,

a moldable muscle filler,
or even a wound-healing vaccine.

Now, we aren't going to wake up tomorrow
and be able to heal like Wolverine.

Probably not next Tuesday either.

But with these advances,
and working with our immune system

to help build tissue and heal wounds,

we could begin seeing
products on the market

that work with our body's defense system
to help us regenerate,

and maybe one day be able
to keep pace with a salamander.

Thank you.

(Applause)