How do I get to the super secret open air observation deck? Who’s number do I need to have to get up there lol

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How many times have you heard the "he's not coming" joke?

Have you ever encountered people trying to recreate a Sleepless in Seattle situation?

Are there places off-limits to the public that you wish you could show?

When the Empire State Building was used for docking airships, how did the people on board disembark? to what floor?

What's your favorite color combo for the top of the ESB?

Did they fire the guy who lit the place up in Philadelphia eagles colors?

Are you from Ireland originally?

What is the most common thing you have to ask guests to stop doing?

What was your favorite day on the job?

within the next ten years, what is the anticipated wait time to grow a particular vascular tissue using the specific materials your lab makes, from patient consent to implantation?

do you see any cooperative possibilities with research groups that focus on nerve, limb and tissue regeneration?

Yes- it's actually what my PhD student is working on right now!

Yes! We give the tissues the initial fabric of instruction but once the right cells are attracted to the space they take over and start growing in a space that they didn't occupy previously.

We can regrow most tissues with our technology. The key is trying to match the chemical, biological and physical components of the tissue we're trying to recreate.

Ooooh that's an interesting question! Actually something I was teaching on recently......how close we're getting to creating something that could solve a lot of problems in one go (robot muscles!) Imagine creating tiny muscles that allow you to smile again and restore your identity to large muscles that help you stand again!

Hello! Absolutely. Biomaterials are already being implanted into patients to grown new tissue. There's a great TED talk by Anthony Atala which gives a good overview of what we're doing in that space (there has been significant progress made since then in fact). One cool thing to note is that as Anthony is giving his TED talk, he's 3D printing a new kidney in the background....

I do work with medical professionals, and roboticists, and engineers, and chemists, biologists, device regulation experts, clinical partners...the list goes on! It's rarely a 1 person show!

A single organ may actually not be the main issue. The issue is the space in which that organ sits in and what else it interacts with (soft tissues, tissues that expand, bone, nerves, blood vessels etc). Creating something that keeps all those partners happy is difficult!

You would need university level qualifications- an undergraduate degree in chemistry/ biology or both and at least a Master's too. I did a PhD also which laid the foundation of my career.

Hello! Thank you for some great questions. I'll break them down in my response;

- nerve regeneration: I actually did do some work on this. I grew nerve cells on my materials and tested the network by sending a signal from one end and seeing whether it would be received on the other end of the network (spoiler: it did!). Many different groups are working on this area and it could mean great things for example for Alzheimer's patients but also for people who have suffered nerve damage in other ways.

- collagen production: most of my materials are designed to recreate the space around the cells. Collagen proteins can also be 'woven' into this space and we can attract cells to that space to carry on the process (it is essentially what I try to do but with more than just collagen). Regarding the ageing tissue: it's an area that both the healthcare and the beauty industry are interested in and whoever gets there first will be inundated with requests i'm sure!

- apoptosis: Yes there are ways that we can induce cell death. Normally this is done by tuning the delivery method so none of the healthy cells die in the process. This type of targeted delivery aligns well with incorporation of drugs for example.

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Hello. I am not but I shall look them up! Thank you for the info!

Hello. This depends on the materials we are designing. For the protein-based materials we are using a technique called 'solid-phase synthesis'. Essentially we start with a solid bead and build our residues/ amino acids (the components that make up a peptide) one by one onto that bead, rather like a pearl necklace! Once we have finished 'synthesising' we remove the 'string of pearls' (the peptide) from the bead.

Hello! A very good question! Once we have the technology fine tuned the next step is 'scale up' to deal with exactly what you say: increased quantity at lower costs. Partnering with industry is often something we do once we're sure we have something worth scaling up.

As the materials are novel the very start of the process, the design optimisation, can be quite costly.

Hello! An interesting question. My work is designed to help patients deal with problems that surgery often can't fix. The materials I create are tailored to address specific diseases or tissue damage to restore function for that patient and reduce pain/ discomfort. The materials are designed to mimic biological tissue and there are no microchips involved in the process and therefore reduced chance of 'surveillance'. In fact we take active steps so the body can't tell the difference between healthy tissue and our materials! I guess all new technologies and ideas receive some type of push back but this is why we include the 'end user' in our processes.

Hi! I have a follow up question. As a person from a non-traditional and a completely non-technical background, what certifications would you recommend before entering bschool to be able to land the marketing internships? Or would it solely be dependent on networking with the right people?

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