Foundation gives $20M to S.C. universities to research organ engineering

This morning the National Science Foundation awarded a $20 million grant to South Carolina universities for research that could lead to the engineering of human organs.

The award, parceled out over five years, will establish a statewide academic alliance in the field of tissue biofabrication, in an endeavor dubbed by researchers as "The South Carolina Project."

Ten institutions will be part of the alliance with the Medical University of South Carolina being the lead institution. Part of the grant will go toward expanding and upgrading MUSC's current bioprinting lab into an advanced, tissue biofabrication center, according to the project's lead scientific director Dr. Roger Markwald.

"This will be the hub of all the interactivity between the other institutions," said Markwald, who is chairman of MUSC's cell biology and anatomy department. "The goal is to use the expertise from everyone in the state to basically transform the technology."

Few may be aware that bioprinting — the process of printing cells at high speeds into three-dimensional structures — was pioneered in South Carolina at MUSC and Clemson, namely by MUSC's Vladimir Mironov and Clemson's Thomas Boland, earlier this decade by retrofitting a laser jet printer.

As a result of the breakthrough, 12 private companies now manufacture bioprinters for a variety of purposes, and researchers are working hard on ways to engineer organs.

To that end, Markwald said, the next step — the next major hurdle to clear — is discovering a way to build "the branching vascular trees" that are needed for engineered organs to be living and viable. Once accomplished, tens of thousands of people on waiting lists for donor organs will have organs created from their own adult-derived stem cells.

"That (creating vascular organs) is the impediment to tissue engineering," said Markwald, noting that the pinnacle of the work would be creating a kidney. He added the bioengineering research process, inevitably, will create an array spin-off technologies and accompanying economic opportunities.

Today's $20 million award was the largest single competitive award granted by the National Science Foundation to South Carolina. The announcement was held at the Statehouse in Columbia and attended by Dr. Lance Haworth, director of the foundation's Office of Integrative Activities.

"I am delighted to announce this award from the National Science Foundation to accelerate research and education and to expand the collaborations among the constellation of South Carolina colleges and universities represented here today," Haworth said. "This five-year award combines world-class science with expertise from medicine to engineering to computer science to mathematics and journalism."

In a phone interview, MUSC President Ray Greenberg said the grant not only expands research opportunities for faculty and education opportunities for students but also provides an economic impact by leading to "commercializable technology" and laying the foundation for a knowledge-based economy throughout the state by attracting high-tech businesses.

Greenberg credited the grant — the third major federal grant for research in South Carolina in six months — to the General Assembly for the lottery-funded, endowed chairs program that provides funding for MUSC, Clemson and South Carolina to attract scholars from around the world.

As a result, the research at the schools has drawn further funding from the National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health and now the National Science Foundation.