The Lab Beat

From Flush to Future

David Kisailus is turning urine into medical-grade material for bone and teeth implants and water purification. Learn how Kisailus is making bone implants more affordable through this new process of producing calcium phosphate from urea. Kisailus, a UCI professor of materials science and engineering, is the director of the well-known Biomimetrics and Nanostructured Materials Lab.
Transcript:
[sci fi music]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: This is the Lab Beat, where we catch the pulse of cutting-edge labs at UC Irvine’s engineering school. I’m Natalie Tso.
[sound of toilet flusing]
Yes, that’s the sound of a toilet. We usually don’t want what’s flushed away, but UCI Professor of Materials Science and Engineering David Kisailus thought differently.
His research team is turning urine into material that can be used for teeth and bone implants.
DAVID KISAILUS: Where urine comes into play is that urine contains urea, and urea is a molecule that if you break it down using a catalyst, an enzyme called urease, urea will break into ammonia and CO2.
TSO: Their team engineered a yeast that breaks the urea down and triggers the creation of calcium phosphate. That’s the same material that makes up our bones and teeth. Now will there be any urine in the implants?
KISAILUS: First of all, when we did the experiment, the urine wasn’t made [chuckle], it was bought from a company. It was artificial urine. So it’s just an ammonia-based compound that we want. But at the end of the day, the urine doesn’t get into the material itself. The component urea from the urine goes into the cell, but what's pumped out is just pure calcium phosphate.
TSO:  Millions of Americans get bone grafts a year. They can cost thousands of dollars, so this new process will make those life-changing procedures more affordable.
KISAILUS: As our population ages, more and more people, including myself, I played sports my whole life, so I definitely will need an implant somewhere at some time in my life. You know, cost of materials will always play a factor in whether people can afford to have implants so I think by having a process where you can make calcium phosphate implant based materials at low cost, I think it will enable a broader swath of folks to be able to get these procedures done.
[sci fi music]
TSO:  He also explains another use for the calcium phosphate they make in their new process.
KISAILUS: It also happens to be a good scavenger of metals and flourine. So one of the issues we have in our society today is a lack of clean drinking water so if you can actually make materials that may be able to scavenge heavy metals or flourines, things that would negatively affect our health in drinking water, that also provides value.
TSO: UC Irvine Professor of Materials Science and Engineering David Kisailus is taking what’s flushed away
[sound of toilet flush]
to make more affordable bone implants and cleaner water.
I’m Natalie Tso, for The Lab Beat which is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.
(Season 1, Episode 2)
 

3D Stem Cell Engineering

Quinton Smith's 3D approach to stem cell engineering could revolutionize how we test drugs and do organ transplants. Learn about his innovative approach and why Popular Science named him a top 10 scientist on the cusp of changing the world in 2023. Smith is an  assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the director of The Smith Lab @ UCI.
Transcript:
[sci fi music]
[sound of bioprinter]
NATALIE TSO, HOST: This is the Lab Beat where we catch the pulse of cutting-edge labs at UC Irvine’s engineering school.  I’m Natalie Tso.
Imagine if someone who needs a new liver could just print one with this 3D bioprinter using a sample of their own cells.  That’s the vision behind stem cell engineering.
Popular Science named Quinton Smith a scientist on the cusp of changing the world in 2023 because of his 3D approach to stem cell engineering. Smith is an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at UC Irvine. What inspired him to get into this field?
SMITH: Science fiction. This idea that we can take any human cell in the body, reprogram it all the way to an embryonic state and create any cell type in the human body for regenerative medicine. I kind of envision like a world where maybe we don't need to take drugs, but maybe we can use the cell as the therapy.
TSO: This is how it’d work with a liver problem:
SMITH: Let's say my liver is failing, right. I take a biopsy of my own skin, reprogram those cells into an embryonic state, convert those cells to liver cells, mass produce those liver cells, use our 3D printer to organize those cells in the way our liver is structured. It has a beautiful hexagonal pattern and then retransplant that back into my body.
I think you now it's a little bit science fiction. You can actually see different shows using 3D printing, like Westworld is one of my favorite shows. But I think that’s feasible. I think that’s possible.
TSO: Ph.D. student Christopher Clark tells us more about that cool 3D bioprinter.
CHRISTOPHER CLARK: This is a Cellink BioX bioprinter with three extrusion heads. If we want to mimic the architecture of some parts of the human body, such as the alveoli of the lungs or the shape of a liver cell environment, we can use a bioprinter to print cells in confined geometries and in relations to other cells that we used to.
TSO: Smith’s team is using it to make mini livers and a key part of the body scientists have long struggled with – blood vessels.
SMITH:  We consider that to be the highway of life. Blood vessels are responsible for delivering nutrients, oxygen and removing waste.
TSO: Smith creates mini blood vessels on a chip about the size of a quarter. These organs-on-a-chip are a much better way to test drugs.
SMITH: Billions of dollars are spent towards drug development, and the traditional workhorse has been animal models.
TSO: But 90% of drugs that worked in mice fail in human trials
SMITH: I believe using these stem cells,  these human cells, we can reduce the costs of drug testing and maybe come up with even more efficient drugs that actually have profound effects on humans. We're not mice.
TSO: So when can we 3D print a human liver? His best guess is…
SMITH: Let's say 15 years, maybe 15 years…
TSO: But Smith is doing it on a small scale in his lab.
SMITH: We work with, let's say, a million cells. Our liver has 200 billion cells. So that's quite a scale up process to achieve but we have to start somewhere.
[sci fi music]
TSO: And while we wait for that 3D-printed liver, scientists are now making insulin cells from stem cells to cure diabetes.
SMITH:  The most exciting success has been the recent development of stem cell treatments for people with type 1 diabetes, a horrible autoimmune disease that kills the insulin-producing beta cells in your body. Well there have been techniques using stem cell biology to create functional beta cells and you can actually implant them back into someone’s body and instead of taking insulin injections, those implanted cells can respond to the diet that you have to create the perfect amount of insulin. So there’s been very promising clinical trials that have actually proven that we can take stem cells and cure diseases like type 1 diabetes.
TSO: That’s Quinton Smith, turning science fiction to reality at UC Irvine.
I’m Natalie Tso for The Lab Beat which is brought to you by the UC Irvine Samueli School of Engineering.
(Season 1, Episode 1)