Dr. Carole Heath, associate professor of chemical engineering at Iowa State University, is focusing her research on several projects involving tissue regeneration, which may have applications to human health.

One of her projects is finding ways to isolate the islets of Langerhans, or islets, which are the cells of the pancreas which produce insulin. If they can be effectively isolated, they can be implanted into diabetics who lack these insulin producing cells, Heath said.

This has been performed on rare occassions, using donated islets from human cadavers, she said. Heath wants to improve the process of isolating islets and eventually be able to grow them in the laboratory so they will be more readily available, she said, but the research is only in its preliminary stages now.

In a grant funded by NASA, Heath is examining the effects of microgravity on the regeneration of cartilage.

This research may eventually provide tissue to help people with joint ailments, such as osteoarthritis, a degenerative condition of the joints. It could also have applications to space flight, Heath said.

“People who come back [from space] find that their muscles have atrophied and their bones might have shrunk a little bit, so we expect that there will be some effects on cartilage as well,” she said.

Heath is also looking at nerve regeneration.

“When nerves are damaged, most of them don’t grow back,” she said.

Heath is developing a system using a polymer which contains growth stimulating molecules to get nerves to grow back.

When it is functional, the device, which looks like a porous straw, will be placed between two ends of a damaged nerve and will act as a bridge for the nerve cells to grow along.

The straw will contain chemical signals to help guide the growth of nerve cells, she said.

Heath said she hopes to implant live cells, called Schwann cells, into the polymer tube which will guide and promote the growth of nerve cells.

In experimental models, the system appears to work.

“We have characterized the entire system, and we are at that point where hopefully we will be testing it in the next few months,” Heath said.