Announcements

We look forward to providing this exciting webinar related to our Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354) Special Issue, "Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications". The topic is broad and highly interdisciplinary, so it should be of interest to many, both researchers and practitioners. There has been and much progress and innovation in this area, with the promise to improve healthcare for a wide range of orthopaedic and other clinical problems.

The Guest Editors of this Special Issue invite you to participate in this webinar. Following the presentations, there will be a question-and-answer session. We look forward to a lively and interactive exchange of ideas.
We hope to see you soon!

Date: 20 April 2023 at 2:00 p.m. CEST | 8:00 a.m. EDT | 8:00 p.m. CST Asia
Webinar ID: 852 1064 4327

Register now for free!

Program

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information on how to join the webinar. Registrations with academic institutional email addresses will be prioritized.

Unable to attend? Register anyway and we will let you know when the recording is available to watch.

Webinar Chair and Keynote Speakers:

• Dr. David E. Anderson, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
• Dr. Madhu S. Dhar, Department of Large Animal Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA
• Dr. Dustin L. Crouch, Department of Mechanical, Aerospace & Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

Relevant Special Issue:
Bioengineered Systems: Implants and Devices for Orthopaedic Applications
Guest Editors: Dr. David Edgar Anderson, Dr. Madhu S. Dhar and Dr. Dustin Crouch
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 May 2023

Relevant feature papers:
“Role of Implantable Drug Delivery Devices with Dual Platform Capabilities in the Prevention and Treatment of Bacterial Osteomyelitis”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(2), 65; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9020065

“Effects on Tissue Integration of Collagen Scaffolds Used for Local Delivery of Gentamicin in a Rat Mandible Defect Model”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(7), 275; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9070275

“Feasibility of Implanting a Foot–Ankle Endoprosthesis within Skin in a Rabbit Model of Transtibial Amputation”
Bioengineering 2022, 9(8), 348; doi:10.3390/bioengineering9080348

The Special Issues below have been selected as high-quality Special Issues for 2022 by the Editorial Office of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We hope that they provide insights and references for scholars in related fields.

1. “Convergence of Science and Engineering: A Promising Window toward Improving the Public Health”
Edited by Ali Zarrabi
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/convergence_sci_eng
Viewed by 16,316 | Cited by 16

2. “Feature Papers in Nanotechnology Applications in Bioengineering”
Edited by Gou-Jen Wang
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/Nanotechnology_Application_Bioengineering
Viewed by 13121 | Cited by 8

3. “Artificial Intelligence Based Computer-Aided Diagnosis”
Edited by Jijiang Yang and Jianqiang Li
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/AI_computer_aided_diagnosis
Viewed by 14195 | Cited by 26

4. “Recent Advances of Medical Devices”
Edited by Robert M. DiBlasi and Crescenzio Gallo
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/Medical_Devices_bioengineering
Viewed by 13650 | Cited by 12

5. “Bioprinting of Tissue-Engineered Scaffolds: Design Strategies & Printability of Smart Biomaterials”
Edited by Chaozong Liu, Saman Naghieh and Gabriella Lindberg
Webpage: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/bioengineering/special_issues/tissue-engineered_scaffolds
Viewed by 19194 | Cited by 45

If you are an active researcher in the field and are passionate about participating in editorial work, please do not hesitate to contact the Bioengineering Editorial Office (bioengineering@mdpi.com)

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni, author of two papers published in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field, and her personal career development.

Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's articles published in Bioengineering:

1. “Effect of Short-Term Deep-Pressure Portable Seat on Behavioral and Biological Stress in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Pilot Study”
2. “Physiological Effect of Deep Pressure in Reducing Anxiety of Children with ASD during Traveling: A Public Transportation Setting”

The following is an interview with Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni:

1. Congratulations on your published papers. Can you provide a background about yourself and what your research areas are?
I am a Professor at Universitas Diponegoro from the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine. My research area is autism spectrum disorders, including fragile X syndrome, and five years ago we established the Undip Biomechanical Engineering Research Center (UBM-RC). Since then, we have explored more research areas to establish deep pressure therapy to help with anxiety.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
Providing handy and effective deep pressure therapy for children with autism spectrum disorders.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering?
Bioengineering is a reputable journal, more open for researchers worldwide, giving the chance to publish important findings. The publishing experience was nice, helpful, with thorough peer review, and fast (sometimes too fast, but it is good for students). Moreover, the Open Access model helps to increase the citation rate. The Open Access model is great, but also not for students, because it was very expensive to publish a paper.

4. What do you hope that readers will get from your papers?
They will get appropriate information for their research and scientific contributions, and it is also useful for patients/parents, who can get more updated information.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's time and support for the Bioengineering journal.

Prof. Dr. Tri Indah Winarni's contact information:
Email: triwinarni@lecturer.undip.ac.id

We had the pleasure of speaking with Rodolfo Reda, one of the authors of the published paper “An Update on Nickel–Titanium Rotary Instruments in Endodontics: Mechanical Characteristics, Testing and Future Perspective—An Overview” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field and his personal career development.

Name: Rodolfo Reda
Email: rodolfo.reda@uniroma1.it
Article title: “An Update on Nickel–Titanium Rotary Instruments in Endodontics: Mechanical Characteristics, Testing and Future Perspective—An Overview”

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you please provide background about yourself and what your research areas are?
Thanks for the opportunity. I am a DDS and currently a Ph.D. student at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, where I graduated. I concentrated my research activity on Ni-Ti alloys and the characteristics of Ni-Ti rotary files used in endodontics. I approached the world of stem cell studies in the laboratory, studying their reactions as a function of the different reagents to which they were subjected. Subsequently, my passion for biochemical and molecular alterations led me to analyze the tissue conditions around dental implants to determine how they affect the implant-supported prostheses features.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
I believe that the challenge for the future is to reduce the invasiveness of our clinical procedures. To do this, it is necessary to fully understand the biochemical/molecular alterations that lead to the predisposing conditions of the disease or its initial stages in order to be able to prevent it or at least cure it in advance.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering? Why did you choose Bioengineering?
The rapid growth that the journal has had is a symptom of the great attention from the editors. In fact, I can confirm this considering the number of articles they have published and the success they have achieved. I chose this journal because it was the most suitable for the type of article I intended to submit.

4. How was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
Very simple and quick. The journal’s management is effective, allowing it to reduce the time between the various phases of the peer-review—it is a system that works well.

5. Was it important to you that the journal is Open Access?
I believe that scientific culture should be as freely accessible as possible. The possibility of Open Access publishing favors the dissemination of scientific knowledge.

6. How do you think Open Access impacts authors?
Some are frightened away by the costs of managing such a system. However, it should not be intimidating because it is possible for them to achieve excellent results, often with important help from the journal when they exploit an excellent article or study.

7. What do you hope that readers will get from your paper?
Curiosity. I believe that the most important thing a scientific article can achieve is to stimulate the reader’s curiosity, enticing other clinicians to research in this same area, perhaps with a few more new ideas.

We are thankful for Rodolfo Reda's time and support for Bioengineering

We had the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Anthony Atala, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent trends in the field and his personal career developments.

Anthony Atala, M.D., is the G. Link Professor and Director of the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine and the W. Boyce Professor and Chair of the Department of Urology at Wake Forest University, USA. His work focuses on growing human cells, tissues, and organs. Sixteen technological applications developed in Dr. Atala's laboratory have been employed clinically in human patients.

Dr. Atala was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Sciences (now the National Academy of Medicine), to the National Academy of Inventors as a Charter Fellow, and to the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering. Dr. Atala is a recipient of the US Congress funded Christopher Columbus Foundation Award, bestowed on a living American who is currently pursuing a discovery that will significantly affect society; the World Technology Award in Health and Medicine, for achieving significant and lasting progress; the Edison Science/Medical Award; the Fast Company World Changing Ideas Award; the R&D Innovator of the Year Award; the Smithsonian Ingenuity Award; and the 2022 Jacobson Innovation Award of the American College of Surgeons for his pioneering work in regenerative medicine.

Dr. Atala’s work was listed twice in Time Magazine’s top ten medical breakthroughs of the year, and as one of five discoveries that will change the future of organ transplantation. In 2019, Dr. Atala’s work was ranked by the Project Management Institute as one of the top ten most impactful biotech projects of the past 50 years. Dr. Atala was named by Scientific American as one of the world’s most influential people in biotechnology, by U.S. News & World Report as one of fourteen pioneers of medical progress in the 21st century, by Life Sciences Intellectual Property Review as one of fifty key influencers in the life sciences intellectual property arena, and by Nature Biotechnology as one of the top ten translational researchers in the world.

Dr. Atala has led or served on several national professional and government committees, including the National Institutes of Health work group on Cells and Developmental Biology, the National Institutes of Health Bioengineering Consortium, and the National Cancer Institute’s Advisory Board. He was a Founder of the Tissue Engineering Society, the Regenerative Medicine Society, the Regenerative Medicine Foundation, the Alliance for Regenerative Medicine, the Regenerative Medicine Development Organization, the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Society, and the Regenerative Medicine Manufacturing Consortium.

Dr. Atala works with several journals in a variety of capacities, including as Editor-in-Chief of Stem Cells Translational Medicine, Therapeutic Advances in Urology, and BioPrinting. He is the editor of 25 books, has published more than 800 journal articles, and has applied for or received over 250 national and international patents.

We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
Our work focuses on growing human cells, tissues, and organs for human transplantation. We are working on developing replacement organs and tissues, as well as healing cell therapies, for more than 40 different areas of the body. Projects range from blood vessels and kidneys to cell therapies for lung disease and hemophilia. We are pursuing multiple strategies, including 3D printing, to move our projects forward to meet our ultimate goal—making patients better. We are also working extensively in using regenerative medicine approaches for body-on-a-chip systems for drug development and microphysological modeling.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
To envision the next transformational steps for the field, we can look at current technologies for the 3D printing of cartilage, bone and skin constructs which can serve as benchmarks for progress. As we understand the factors that have contributed to their success, and as we anticipate advances overall in the bioprinting of materials and cells, current limitations can hopefully be overcome in the short term. The continued development of materials for 3D printing, cell sourcing, tissue structure and biomechanical properties, should have a significant impact on moving the field forward.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
As I initially pursued medicine, I never even considered research. In fact, I had to be talked into doing a research fellowship after I finished my medical training. Yet once I started on that path, I realized I didn’t want to turn back. Research has been an important part of my career and life ever since. The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine research teams are driven by its mission—to improve patients’ lives through regenerative medicine. The goal is to create replacement tissues and organs for patients. It is estimated that every 30 seconds, a patient dies from a disease that could be treated with tissue replacement. There are simply not enough donor tissues and organs to meet the demand. Regenerative medicine offers the hope of engineering replacement organs in the lab to help solve this shortage. Because these organs would be made with a patient’s own cells, there would be no issues with rejection.

4. Do you have any advice you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
I think it’s important not to put limitations on yourself and your thinking. My advice is always to be receptive to new opportunities and change and to seek advice and input from people who can help when you have a decision to make that can change your life’s trajectory.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
I am generally in favor of Open Access. Both the scientific community and the general public benefit when publications are widely available. Another consideration is of course financial. Publication fees are often used as an alternative to reader charges, and that can have downsides; for example, bias against less well-funded researchers.

We are thankful for Dr. Atala's time and for his continued support of Bioengineering.

Dr. Anthony Atala’s contact information:
Email: aatala@wakehealth.edu

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Ali Zarrabi, an Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354), to discuss the recent research trends in the field and his personal career developments. We hope you enjoy the interview.

1. What are your research areas?
My research area is translational nano-bioengineering. It is a multi-disciplinary research field with the mission of performing cutting-edge fundamental and applied research, rooted firmly in nano- and bio-engineering, leading to the development of novel diagnostic/treatment methods for a range of diseases and conditions. Translation is the process of turning laboratory studies into results that directly benefit the health of individuals and the public. It will cover the entire range of basic science and pre-clinical discoveries in diagnostics and therapeutics.

2. What are the latest developments in your research field?
We have developed several bioengineered nano-composites for drug delivery, disease/biomarker diagnosis, tissue engineering (repair or replacement), and wound healing applications. In my research group, the young researchers will be given the opportunity to conduct collaborative research with other groups of highly diverse backgrounds and expertise. Our research spans many areas, including cancer, aging, pharmacology and toxicology, drug delivery, infection, and nutrition.

3. Can you briefly share your career development story? For example, what cases have influenced you the most?
Having seen the influence of interdisciplinary research on the health of society, I decided to become a part of this success story, even with a tiny contribution. I have continuously tried hard in the hopes of conquering the peak and planning for the next.

4. Do you have any valuable suggestions that you would like to share with young students and early career researchers?
Young students should not be discouraged if they do not reach their desired results immediately. They must keep going and try hard to find the way to go.
About the early career researchers, do not underestimate the following:
1. Group work;
2. The miracle of working with undergraduates.
The current student generation has numerous unmet capabilities that you could discover.

5. What do you think of the development of Open Access in publishing?
In my opinion, it is more than necessary to make the results of research available to the public. Especially now that the science development rate is higher than at any time in history, we should keep our findings open to contribute to universal development. Otherwise, our findings will be out of date soon after we publish them in a non-open manner.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Zarrabi's time and support of Bioengineering.

Prof. Dr. Zarrabi's contact information:
Email: alizarrabi@gmail.com

As a leading open access publisher, MDPI provides scholars with a high-quality and rich academic exchange platform by continuously expanding into new and exciting research areas.

In December 2022, MDPI launched five new journals, covering multiple subjects such as life sciences, biology, medicine and pharmacology, social sciences and humanities. These new journals are being edited by established scholars across the world.

If you are interested in creating more open access journals with us to publish cutting-edge research, please send your journal proposal application to newjournal-committee@mdpi.com.

MDPI is pleased to announce that we now display the co-authors’ email addresses in addition to the corresponding author’s email address on the webpage of published papers, protected by Captcha. For more information about this change, please visit the journal’s instructions for authors page. 

We believe this change will facilitate academic discussions and advance our cause of open science and research. The corresponding authors are responsible for communicating with their co-authors and indicating in our system (https://susy.mdpi.com/) if co-authors would prefer for their email addresses not to be displayed.

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Fergal J. O'Brien, Editorial Board Member of Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). Prof. Dr. O'Brien is working as Professor of bioengineering and regenerative medicine and is the Head of the Tissue Engineering Research Group which is based in the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He is also part of the leadership team of the Advanced Materials and Bioengineering Research Centre and is Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation at RCSI.

We hope you enjoy the interview!

We had the pleasure of speaking with Prof. Dr. Stephanie Willerth, author of the published paper “Natural Biomaterials and Their Use as Bioinks for Printing Tissues” in Bioengineering (ISSN: 2306-5354). We discussed the recent research trends in the field and her personal career developments.

1. Congratulations on your published paper. Can you please tell us a bit about yourself and what your research areas are?
I am a Full Professor and the Canada Research Chair at the University of Victoria where I hold dual appointments in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Division of Medical Sciences. I also hold an affiliate appointment with the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. I run a research group that investigates how to engineer neural tissue from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) using a variety of methods, including 3D bioprinting and cellular reprogramming. My research group has developed many types of biomaterial scaffolds for promoting the differentiation of iPSCs into neural cell types for tissue engineering applications, such as screening the toxicity of drugs, learning about how tissues form during development, and replacing dysfunctional tissues. I also founded the spin-off company Axolotl Biosciences, with the goal of bioprinting neural tissues that are easily accessible to scientists and engineers from a range of backgrounds.

2. What are the current cutting-edge research topics in your field of interest?
The field of 3D bioprinting is evolving at a rapid rate. It has been interesting to see the new bioprinters being developed along with recent advances in bioinks that allow for the generation of tissues similar to those found in the human body. The use of 3D bioprinting for clinical applications is also another hot area of research and discussion.

3. What made you decide to publish an article in Bioengineering? Why did you choose Bioengineering?
We were invited to submit by one of my colleagues—Dr. Houman Savoji. One of the advantages of submitting to journals such as Bioengineering is that you get quick and high-quality reviews, and there is a quick turnaround in your paper being published after it has been accepted.

4. How was your experience publishing with Bioengineering?
It was great—the process, including submission and responding to reviews, was quick and easy.

5. Was it important to you that the journal is Open Access?
Yes, we receive significant support from a variety of funding agencies, including the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Michael Smith Health Research B.C., the Pacific Parkinson’s Research Institute, the Canada Research Chairs program, and the New Frontiers in Research Fund, and these organizations are funded by taxpayers and donors. I think it is important that anyone can read the results of the research being conducted using such funding.

6. How do you think Open Access impacts authors?
Our Open Access papers tend to be more widely read by diverse audiences, which helps ensure that our work is read by relevant audiences.

7. What do you hope that readers will receive from your paper?
The review does an excellent job of discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of naturally derived biomaterials when used as bioinks for generating tissue models. The team who wrote the paper is an outstanding collection of women scientists and engineers. The first author—Claire Benwood—successfully defended her master’s degree last fall and will start working in the biotechnology industry this spring.

We are thankful for Prof. Dr. Willerth's time and support for the Bioengineering journal.

Prof. Dr. Stephanie Willerth’s contact information:
Email: willerth@uvic.ca