International leader in tissue engineering to speak in Bozeman

MSU News Service

An expert in shoulder and knee surgery and an international leader in tissue engineering research will speak Friday, Nov. 4, at Montana State University.

Dr. Cato T. Laurencin — recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence and innovator in the regeneration of knee tissue — will give a free public seminar on “Regenerative Engineering of the Musculoskeletal System” at 7:30 p.m. in the Hager Auditorium of MSU’s Museum of the Rockies. A reception will precede the talk at 6:45 p.m.

President Barack Obama, in 2009, gave Laurencin the Presidential Award for Excellence, an honor given to science, math and engineering mentors. Scientific American Magazine recently named Laurencin one of the top 50 innovators for his groundbreaking technological work in regenerating knee tissue. The American Institute of Chemical Engineers included him on its list of “100 Chemical Engineers of the Modern Era.” In 2009, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering gave him its highest honor, the Pierre Galletti Award.

Laurencin is a professor in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery at the UConn Health Center. He is CEO of the Connecticut Institute for Clinical and Translational Science, director of the Institute for Regenerative Engineering and the Van Dusen Endowed Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and the American College of Orthopaedic Surgeons, is widely published in scholarly journals and holds more than 20 U.S. patents.

Laurencin was asked to speak at MSU by Cassandra Langr of Bozeman, a fellow in MSU’s Molecular Biosciences Program and a doctoral candidate in chemical engineering, studying under Ross Carlson. Second-year fellows are encouraged to invite speakers to campus for the program’s seminar series. Langr said she wanted to invite a speaker who crosses several disciplines like the Molecular Biosciences Program does. She came across Laurencin in her search and noted that he is not only an M.D. orthopaedic surgeon, but a Ph.D. biosciences engineer.

Laurencin’s lecture is sponsored by the Molecular Biosciences Program and the Montana INBRE program.