Antonios Mikos, Ph.D.

It is with great pleasure that I inform you that our friend Antonios “Tony” G. Mikos of Rice University has been selected as the recipient of the 2019 Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal. The Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal “recognizes demonstrated leadership in the field of Science and Engineering of Biomaterials. The awardee is a recognized world leader in the field of biomaterials, whose accomplishments in discovery and translation to practice are surpassing and well known in the field. With this distinction Acta Materialia, Inc. not only intends to honor outstanding contributions to the field but also to improve the awareness of the fundamental importance and diversity of materials research, both within the community and the public at large.”

The award carries the name of the Elsevier-published distinguished journal “Acta Biomaterialia” which has been expertly directed since its founding by its founder and inaugural editor William Wagner of the University of Pittsburgh.

The Acta Biomaterialia Gold Medal Award consists of a gold medal, an inscribed certificate, and a cash prize of US$ 10,000. Tony will be the eleventh recipient of this award since it was initiated in 2008 (with Bob Langer, Tony’s postdoc mentor, as the first recipient). Previous recipients are listed here http://actamaterialia.org/awards/acta-biomaterialia-gold-medal/

As indicated by the Chair of the Selection Committee, Art Coury of Northeastern University, Tony will select the venue/meeting for his award symposium and the traditional reception, which is usually followed by an assortment of shorter talks about the recipient and his life.

Congratulations Tony!

Nick Peppas

Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos has been named a fellow of the International Academy of Medical and Biological Engineering.

The honor recognizes his “distinguished contributions to and leadership in the field of medical and biological engineering,” according to the academy, which is part of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering. The academy was established to conduct programs that encourage young people entering the field and also their development in the early stages of their career.

Mikos is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering. He is director of the National Institutes of Health Center for Engineering Complex Tissues at Rice. His group at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative specializes in the synthesis, processing and evaluation of new biomaterials for use as scaffolds for tissue engineering, as carriers for controlled drug delivery and as nonviral vectors for gene therapy… Continue reading.

Rice University bioengineers led by Antonios Mikos will take part in a five-year, $20 million effort to apply advanced manufacturing techniques to regenerative medicine.

The goal of the effort led by the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine is to speed up the availability of replacement tissue and organs to patients.

The award springs from a public-private partnership that involves the U.S. Army Medical Research and Material Command. The partnership, known as the Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium, intends to accelerate progress in regenerative medicine manufacturing.

Rice is a partner in the associated Regenerative Manufacturing Innovation Consortium, which helps ensure a smooth transition of therapies to market and works with government agencies to develop standards and address regulatory changes.

“Our work will focus on the development of standardized processes and materials for the manufacturing of regenerative medicine products for the benefit of patients,” said Mikos, Rice’s Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering.

HOUSTON — (June 21, 2016) — Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos has been elected to the Academy of Athens – Greece’s national academy and highest research establishment – as a corresponding member in the Section of the Sciences.

“Professor Mikos holds international acclaim as a global pioneer in the application of fundamentals of engineering and biological sciences toward the development of biomaterials for a wide variety of medical uses,” the academy noted. “His exceptional research productivity is clearly reflected by his authorship of more than 550 scientific publications, which collectively have garnered over 49,000 citations.”

Mikos is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of chemistry and of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice. He is the director of the J.W. Cox Laboratory for Biomedical Engineering and of the Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering.

His lab in Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative specializes in the synthesis, processing and evaluation of new biomaterials for use as scaffolds for tissue engineering, as nonviral vectors for gene therapy and as carriers for controlled drug delivery. His work has led to the development of novel orthopedic, dental, cardiovascular, neurologic and ophthalmologic biomaterials, including synthetic biodegradable polymers that can be used for guided tissue growth and the precise regeneration of bone to repair defects and injuries.

“The research of Professor Mikos brought paradigmatic shifts in the way researchers approach biomaterials for regenerative medicine and enabled the rational design of scaffolds by his laboratory and others for site-specific tissue regeneration,” the academy wrote. “These scaffolds remain the cornerstone in tissue engineering and the basis for countless clinical products.”

Rice University researchers developing temporary implants for facial reconstruction are incorporating a unique way to deliver time-released antibiotics to ward off infection while a patient heals.

The Rice laboratory of bioengineer Antonios Mikos develops materials to help repair severe craniofacial injuries from trauma or pathological defects like tumor removal. The lab’s specialized plastic space maintainers are designed to keep a pocket for new bone open while the overlying soft tissue heals. In later surgery, the implant is removed to make way for reconstruction of the bone.

In the latest advance, porous polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) implants are filled with a gel that leaches its protective antibiotic contents to surrounding tissue, which protects the tissue from infection for several weeks.

The project is the subject of a paper that appeared this week in the Royal Society of Chemistry journal Biomaterials Science.

“Infection is an important problem that needs to be considered with medical devices because bacteria can prevent the body from being able to heal,” Mikos said. “If the infection gets too severe, it can even cause tissues that were previously healthy to die.”

Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos will be honored with a lifetime achievement award by Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society-Americas at the society’s World Congress in Boston in September.

Mikos is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering. His group at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative specializes in the synthesis, processing and evaluation of new biomaterials for use as scaffolds for tissue engineering, as carriers for controlled drug delivery and as nonviral vectors for gene therapy.

Recent projects include the development of synthetic biodegradable polymers as scaffolds for guided tissue growth, including the precise regeneration of bone to repair defects and injuries. His work has led to the development of novel orthopedic, dental, cardiovascular, neurologic and ophthalmologic biomaterials. He is the author of more than 520 publications and holds 27 patents.

Mikos is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a professor of chemistry, materials science and nanoengineering. His research group at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative specializes in the synthesis, processing and evaluation of new biomaterials for use as scaffolds for tissue engineering, as carriers for controlled drug delivery and as nonviral vectors for gene therapy. His work has led to the development of novel orthopedic, dental, cardiovascular, neurologic and ophthalmologic biomaterials. He is the author of more than 520 publications and holds 27 patents.

Mikos is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies and the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas.

A $75 million Department of Defense grant to improve technologies to treat soldiers injured on the battlefield and advance care for the public will involve bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).

The five-year Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) grant announced today by the lead institution, the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, continues a program that began in 2008. Through AFIRM-II, researchers at Rice led by Antonios Mikos, a pioneer in the field of tissue engineering, and Kurt Kasper, a Rice faculty fellow in bioengineering, expect to advance the art of craniofacial reconstruction. The grant funds research at more than 45 academic institutions and industry partners.

From left, Alexander Tatara and Sarita Shah, students in the Baylor College of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program, with Rice bioengineers Antonios Mikos and Kurt Kasper. The Rice team is part of a new Department of Defense grant to extend the AFIRM program for advanced technology to treat battlefield injuries. The students are engaged in Ph.D. studies in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice, after which they will complete their M.D. studies at Baylor College of Medicine. Photo by Jeff Fitlow
Regenerative medicine, which takes advantage of the body’s natural healing powers to restore or replace damaged tissue and organs, is one of many lines of research under investigation at Rice’s BioScience Research Collaborative (BRC).

“We’re very excited to have this opportunity to complete the work we started five years ago on the technologies we promised for the injured warrior,” said Mikos, director of the BRC-based Rice Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering. He is the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice.

What might accelerate the development of cancer therapeutics? Three-dimensional scaffolds, according to researchers at Rice University, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, and Mount Sinai Medical Center. Their porous polymer scaffolds were designed to support the growth of biological tissue for implantation, and were used to culture Ewing’s sarcoma cells. The researchers say the scaffolds were effective at mimicking the environment in which such tumors develop.

“The scaffolds better recapitulate the microenvironment in which tumors grow, as compared with two-dimensional plastic surfaces typically used in cancer research to test anticancer drugs,” says Rice bioengineer Antonios Mikos, Ph.D., who led the research team with Joseph Ludwig, M.D., an assistant professor and sarcoma medical oncologist at MD Anderson. They note that although monolayer cultures recapitulate some of the phenotypic traits observed clinically, they are limited in their ability to model the full range of microenvironmental cues, such as ones elicited by 3D cell–cell and cell–extracellular matrix interactions.

“We’ve been working to investigate how we can leverage our expertise in engineering normal tissues to cancerous tissues, which can potentially serve as a better predictor of anticancer drug response than standard drug-testing platforms,” Dr. Mikos says.

Porous polymer scaffolds fabricated to support the growth of biological tissue for implantation may hold the potential to greatly accelerate the development of cancer therapeutics.

Researchers at Rice University and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York reported this week that three-dimensional scaffolds used to culture Ewing’s sarcoma cells were effective at mimicking the environment in which such tumors develop.

Their research appears online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“The scaffolds better recapitulate the microenvironment in which tumors grow, as compared with two-dimensional plastic surfaces typically used in cancer research to test anti-cancer drugs,” said Rice bioengineer Antonios Mikos, who led the research team with Joseph Ludwig, an assistant professor and sarcoma medical oncologist at MD Anderson.

“We’ve been working to investigate how we can leverage our expertise in engineering normal tissues to cancerous tissues, which can potentially serve as a better predictor of anti-cancer drug response than standard drug-testing platforms,” Mikos said.

Two Rice University scientists were elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies today.

Lydia Kavraki, the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and professor of bioengineering, and Antonios Mikos, the Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, are part of the new class of inductees named today at the organization’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

“These honored Rice faculty are both leaders in their disciplines and are exemplary members of the School of Engineering,” said Ned Thomas, the William and Stephanie Sick Dean of Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering. “It is very gratifying to have the IOM honor engineers and their unique contributions to medicine and to the betterment of human health. Notably, both Lydia and Tony joined the Rice faculty as assistant professors and have developed and expanded their illustrious careers at Rice.”

Bioengineering’s Antonios Mikos has been elected a founding fellow of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS).

The honor credits Mikos’ decades of research in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, service to education within the field and contributions to TERMIS and the journal Tissue Engineering.  He will be presented with the award during an evening gala at the third TERMIS World Congress in Vienna Sept. 5-8.

Rice University bioengineer Antonios Mikos, a pioneer in the field of tissue engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) — one of the highest professional honors accorded an engineer. He becomes Rice’s 14th active NAE member.

Mikos, Rice’s Louis Calder Professor of Bioengineering, professor in chemical and biomolecular engineering and director of Rice’s Center for Excellence in Tissue Engineering, was among 66 new members elected to the academy this week. He was selected “for advances in tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, biomaterials and drug delivery, including development of biodegradable polymers.”

If you ever want to gain a fresh appreciation of how well made the human body is, try building replacement parts for missing or damaged elements of the original equipment. It will require all the biology, chemistry, physics and engineering you can marshal, and then some.

In a recent Wednesday Afternoon Lecture he titled “Biomaterials for Tissue Engineering,” Dr. Antonios G. Mikos, professor in the department of bioengineering at Rice University, gave an overview of a “relatively young field” that has been around for only 20 years or so.

“The promise of the field,” however, “is no longer science fiction, but reality,” said Mikos, who holds 25 patents and has worked on biomaterials in a wide range of tissues.

Antonios G. Mikos has been selected for the Controlled Release Society’s (CRS) 2011 College of Fellows Award for his landmark contributions in material and drug delivery research that has brought about significant advances to the field of tissue engineering.

The College of Fellows Award, the most prestigious level of membership of CRS, credits decades of Mikos’ efforts in the research, development, and testing of many biomaterials for injectable delivery or implantation to aid in the repair or replacement of damaged tissue due to disease or trauma. He will be presented with the award during the society’s Annual Meeting & Exposition at the Gaylord National Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland, June 31-July 3.

Rice University Professor Antonios Mikos has received one of the highest honors in the biomaterials and tissue engineering fields: the Society For Biomaterials’ 2011 Founders Award. The award was given for his long-term, landmark contributions to the discipline of biomaterials.

The award credits Mikos’ decades of research and published studies that have produced new clinical applications in
the treatment and repair of tissue from damage due to trauma or disease. The award will be presented during the Society For Biomaterials’ annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., in April.

Antonios Mikos has received the 2010 Distinguished Scientist Award–Isaac Schour Memorial Award from the International Association for Dental Research (IADR).

The award recognizes his outstanding scientific contributions in the anatomic sciences, including tissue engineering, tissue regeneration and stem cell research as it relates to the oral, dental and craniofacial complexes. The highest honor in the field of dental and craniofacial research, the award is given to scientists who, through research in this field, bring about significant advances in oral health.

Mikos was presented the award last month at the IADR general session and exhibition in Barcelona, Spain.

Antonios Mikos is the 2010 recipient of the Food, Pharmaceutical and Bioengineering Award in Chemical Engineering of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) for his outstanding achievements in tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery, service to academia, and the field of chemical engineering.

AIChE, the world’s leading organization for chemical engineering professionals, will formally present Mikos with a plaque and a $4,000 honorarium during a special session at the society’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah, Nov. 7-12, 2010. At that time, he will deliver a plenary lecture.

Rice’s Antonios Mikos and Johnna Temenoff of the Georgia Institute of Technology are recipients of the 2010 Meriam/Wiley Distinguished Author Award by the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) for their textbook Biomaterials: The Intersection of Biology and Materials Science. This is the first time authors of a biomedical engineering textbook have been recognized with this award.

The ASEE award is offered biannually and is very competitive, with nominated books coming from engineering schools across the U.S. The award-winning textbook has already been adopted for use by more than 40 U.S. universities.