MIE Distinguished Seminar Series: From Polymer Processing to Fabrication of Tissue Engineering Scaffolds

Abstract

In light of the broad range of academic and research interests of the audience and in the spirit of encouraging dialogue, this presentation will begin with a background of Turng’s research on microcellular injection molding, biobased polymers, and polymer nanocomposites. These research areas enable the mass production of porous, biodegradable polymer constructs with tunable mechanical properties that are naturally suitable for tissue engineering scaffold applications. The second part of the presentation includes a brief introduction to tissue engineering and biofabrication, followed by a walk-through of some of the ongoing research projects in Turng’s group and the BIONATES research theme at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery.

Speaker biosketch

Professor Lih-Sheng (Tom) Turng received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Cornell University. He worked in industry developing advanced plastics processing simulation software and Knowledge Management System (KMS) for 10 years before joining the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) in 2000. His research encompasses injection molding, microcellular injection molding, nanocomposites, bio-based polymers, tissue engineering scaffolds, and digital design and manufacturing. Professor Turng holds the Kuo K. and Cindy F. Wang Professorship and the Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professorship and is the Co-Director of the Polymer Engineering Center at UW-Madison, Research Theme Leader at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), a Fellow member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and the Society of Plastics Engineers (SPE).