Miss Raman, how do you become a bioengineer?
Ritu Raman: There are many engineers in my family. As a child, I constantly changed homes and saw, for example, how my parents set up cell phone poles in Kenya and how technical advances improved the lives of people in remote villages. I always knew I wanted to do something that would make people’s lives better, something that would leave the world better than I found it.
And what exactly are you researching?
of biofabrication. What is meant by this is engineering involving living materials as “building materials”.
What exactly do you mean by “living materials”?
In the lab we grow different types of tissue with pinpoint accuracy – for example, muscles, bones or skin. Researchers from various disciplines can then use these tissues. For example in medicine, in the field of nutrition, but also in mechanical engineering in the future.
First in medicine: what are the potential applications of your research?
A broad field is transplantation medicine. The skin can already be grown from the body’s own cells to help burn victims, for example. But until now, it has been difficult to make up for the massive muscle loss. Muscles are not well developed. With lab-grown muscle mass, people who have “lost” but “newly grown” muscles after accidents, for example, transplanted from the body’s own cells, can be helped.
Is there already a successful application?
Yes, in an experiment with a mouse. We replaced the leg muscle with ours. We genetically engineered the muscle to be light sensitive. If you shine a light on the mouse’s leg, the muscle will contract – a kind of training. About a week later, the mouse was able to walk normally again.
Are there any other textures that can be grown this way?
It is theoretically possible to grow any type of tissue this way – some easier than others. For example, cartilage is very easy to grow because it has no blood vessels. This may help patients with osteoarthritis in the future – a lab I worked at when I was a student did experiments in which cultured cartilage was subjected to loads similar to the cartilage in our knee joints.
And?
In fact, under the constant impact, the cartilage became compressed and formed a structure similar to knee cartilage – but not yet good enough to be used. But there is another major area of medicine.
Please!
We can grow organs with pinpoint accuracy and then use them to test new drugs. In this way, the pharmaceutical industry can avoid numerous tests on animals. This saves costs and can greatly shorten the complex process of approving new drugs. And it minimizes animal suffering – just like the practice of raising meat to eat later.
would you Do you eat meat grown in your lab?
I myself have always been a vegetarian. I can try. But I don’t see the need because I don’t want anything without meat. But I wouldn’t have any ethical issues.
Do you think farm meat has a future? There is a certain creep factor.
There is research on this: young single men most likely accept lab-grown meat. Accepted by women who eat the least vegetarian food.
Isn’t meat breeding in the laboratory as energy intensive as animal husbandry?
Current research shows that energy expenditure is actually only slightly lower. But of course what can be completely eliminated would be the suffering of animals. Problems with methane emissions from animals, over-fertilized soil due to animal feces, and heavy use of antibiotics will also be resolved. As a result, the balance is positive.
How did you come to this research area?
When I was an engineering student at MIT, I actually wanted to build amazing rockets for space exploration. But during my mandatory internship, I worked in a biology lab and administered a series of tests that examined how different diets and different training options affected animals. It’s actually boring – superficially.
And behind the scenes?
I was struck by how different the effects of even small changes in diet and training can be, and how little time it takes for muscles to strengthen, recover, or perform functions that they could not do before with a little training. And this engineering is built with “dead” material, so to speak: Even if a machine or robot breaks down, that thing remains broken and must be repaired by humans. Traditionally designed things can only fulfill the function for which they were designed. If they do something else, you have to build something new. That’s when the idea came to me: If robots could move with their muscles, they could be trained. They can be adapted for different tasks and heal themselves.
So we’re talking about robots with muscle mass grown in the lab?
Exactly. We grow tissue, it can also be skin or cartilage, and we connect this living tissue with, among other things, structures from the 3D printer, “bones” so to speak. Muscles are in a kind of sugar solution with some amino acids and get their energy from there.
how far is that Further?
We have developed a kind of worm about 3 centimeters in size. The “skeleton” comes from the 3D printer and is attached to it, a muscle whose cells we have genetically modified, like in a mouse, so that they respond to pulses of light with a contraction. With flashes of light, the whole organism moves in the desired direction. We realized that even with this very simple structure, it can do more than a simple robot: it can heal itself and the longer it works, the stronger it gets.
Where do you see future applications?
In the long run, a few decades from now, in the huge field of robotics: Self-healing robots made from biological components that adapt to their environment can save incredible resources.
To be honest, organs and robots that grow biologically and implant sound a bit like Frankenstein to me. Can organs with “better” or different functions be enlarged and transplanted, so to speak?
It would be hypothetically possible to create such organs. However, I am not aware of any long-term research studies on this topic. Much of the research in this area focuses on medical applications – helping people who are no longer able to walk because of an accident or illness, for example.
Still, would you do it yourself? For example, hypothetically implanted eyes that perceive a wider spectrum of light?
I actually think it’s interesting to think about how new materials can improve our bodily functions. But I needed to know exactly what the risks were and ensure that any changes in my body were not passed on to the next generation.
What are the biggest ethical issues in your research?
In medicine, access to the applications of our research is a major challenge: For example, advances in transplant medicine should not be something that only the wealthy can benefit from. For example, if you think we can replace muscles with stronger muscles or expand our senses and just have the rich, we would have a more unjust society than we have now.
Wait a minute: So rich people could potentially buy real superpowers in the future?
In fact, it can be imagined that the technology we develop in the future could be used not only to heal muscles but also to strengthen them. More importantly, we always consider the ethical implications of our research and its impact on the global community.
Aspect?
As in other fields of science, we believe we need to work closely with ethicists, policy makers and the public on the lines of research we follow.
You said before that you want to give something back to humanity. But your research is heavily funded by the US military. How is this going together?
We are financed from a variety of sources. Therefore, I do not hesitate to give information about any source.
Did you actually patent some of your research results?
Yes some, arguably the most relevant, is the application of lab-grown muscles to machines.
Do you think you will become very rich with this?
Hopefully! However, my area of interest is to provide a positive effect and benefit for human health with more research.
Do you think being successful comes from following your passions?
Oh no! I feel this advice so often given to teenagers is just follow your interests and then everything will fall into place, even wrong! Of course, you have to do something suitable for yourself. However, in order to lead a satisfying life, one must first think about how to use one’s inclinations and abilities for the benefit of society.