| Chris Lessing’s experience
at the Georgia Tech/Emory Center for the Engineering of Living Tissues
(GTEC), an NSF-supported Engineering Research Center, made him an excellent
choice for a trainee position with the Cellular and Tissue Engineering
Training Program, an NIH training grant administered by GTEC faculty member,
Dr. Andres Garcia. Part of the grant allowed Lessing, a PhD candidate,
to intern with Depuy Spine Biologics Group (now Johnson & Johnson Regenerative
Therapeutics) in Raynham, MA, a GTEC Industrial Partner.
Depuy Spine Biologics Group
was seeking an intern who could contribute to two early-stage projects
involving in vitro investigation of therapies for Parkinson’s disease and
congestive heart failure. Chris’s status as a fifth-year PhD student
and his exposure to the cross-disciplinary environment at GTEC gave him
the ability to switch gears between the Parkinson’s and congestive heart
failure projects on a daily basis and provide meaningful input to DePuy.
“Chris added a tremendous
amount of energy and enthusiasm to the project. He refocused our
efforts and, in some cases, brought a new way of thinking or a new depth
to the project. He was used to thinking of science from an angle
different from ours, so it was refreshing to see his point of view as well,”
said Dr. Cynthia Coleman, Lessing’s supervisor and mentor at DePuy Biologics
(now at REMEDI, a GTEC research collaborator). Coleman indicated
that a big benefit was Chris’s ability, as an intern, to dedicate 100%
of his time to the practice of science and engineering without being distracted
by the normal administrative tasks of a corporate researcher. This
allowed him to give a considerable depth of critical thought to the experimental
direction and data analysis.
The internship requirement
of the training grant is somewhat unique in the PhD educational environment.
Twenty-nine internships have been facilitated so far through Dr. Garcia’s
training grant with host companies such as: Advanced Tissue Sciences, Axogen,
Baxter Cardiovascular Group, CenterPulse, Cordis/J&J, DePuy, Edwards
LifeSciences, Ethicon/J&J, Genzyme, Guidant, Medtronic, National Science
Foundation, Osiris Therapeutics, Porex and Smith & Nephew. |
