Laura E. Niklason, MD. Ph.D.

Laura Niklason, the Nicholas M. Greene Professor in Anesthesia and Biomedical Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE).

Cited for her contributions to research in cardiovascular tissue engineering, lung regeneration, and biomedical imaging, Niklason was among 87 new members elected to the academy. Niklason will be formally inducted during a ceremony at the NAE’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 30, 2018.

Niklason’s research is focused on creating engineered blood vessels and lung tissue using bioreactors, with the eventual goal of providing new ways to treat patients, including those with kidney failure, heart disease, or in need of certain organ transplants… Continue reading.

It was her experience as a physician in the intensive care unit that pointed Laura Niklason in the direction of making engineered blood vessels for kidney dialysis patients. She worked with countless patients requiring needle injections multiple times per week, whose veins weren’t up for the job.

“Some patients had failures over and over and over,” said Niklason, the Nicholas M. Greene Professor in Anesthesia and Biomedical Engineering. “They’re in the operating room all the time and they get infections and they get hospitalized for those infections. And it’s just miserable… Continue reading.

In one of the longest follow-up studies of its kind, researchers found that their specially bioengineered blood vessels evolved into living tissue after human implantation.

Researchers from Yale and the North Carolina-based company Humacyte published results today in Science Translational Medicine on the progress of their bioengineered human vessels (HAVs). The results show that these vessels – devoid of any cells at the time they were implanted in patients – had taken on cells, transforming the structures into living tissues that could transport blood and self-heal after injury. They had, essentially, become the patients’ own blood vessels.

“What it shows is that these implants really stimulate the recipients’ cells to repopulate the vessels and take on the characteristics we would expect in cells,” said Laura E. Niklason, professor of anesthesiology and biomedical engineering,and a co-founder of Humacyte… Continue reading.

Prof. Laura Niklason, in the Biomedical Engineering Department, has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, one of the nation’s top honors in the fields of health and medicine.

Niklason’s research is focused on creating engineered blood vessels, lung tissue and cardiac muscle. She is currently testing engineered arteries in patients with vascular disease and renal failure. In 2010, her research team created artificial lungs that were capable of gas exchange, a fundamental function of the lungs, in a rat model. The advance was cited by Time magazine as one of the 50 Best Inventions of 2010.

She is one of 80 members elected this year to the National Academy of Medicine, and one of four from Yale. According to the organization’s website, new members are elected by current active members and chosen based on major contributions to the advancement of the medical sciences, health care, and public health. Victor J. Dzau, president of the National Academy of Medicine said the newly elected members “represent the brightest, most influential, and passionate people in health, science, and medicine in our nation and internationally… Continue reading.