Toggle light / dark theme

Immunomodulatory Biomaterials In Regenerative Medicine — Dr. Kara Spiller-Geisler, Ph.D., Drexel University School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems.


Dr. Kara Spiller, PhD (https://drexel.edu/biomed/faculty/core/SpillerKara/) is Associate Professor in the Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory at Drexel University, in Philadelphia.

Dr. Spiller received her bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in biomedical engineering from Drexel University where she conducted her doctoral research in the design of semi-degradable hydrogels for the repair of articular cartilage in the Biomaterials and Drug Delivery Laboratory at Drexel, and in the Shanghai Key Tissue Engineering Laboratory of Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Engineering projects need goals, and James Worden ’89 set an especially engaging and enduring one for himself as a high school student in the early 1980s while pursuing his passion for homebuilt go-karts.


The MIT Alumni Association seeks to engage and inspire the MIT global community to make a better world. It provides a lifelong community for MIT graduates, a launching pad for students, and growing connection among MIT friends.

The importance of learning, unlearning, and relearning the wisdom in foresight

By Alexandra Whittington and Teresa Inés Cruz

Futurist Alvin Toffler famously said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It is time for the foresight community to take Toffler’s sage advice, starting with one basic assumption of the Western futurist perspective that dates back to the Victorians: progress.

There’s only one Universal Consciousness, we individualize our conscious awareness through the filter of our nervous system, our “local” mind, our very inner subjectivity, but consciousness itself, the Self in a greater sense, our “core” self is universal, and knowing it through experience has been called enlightenment, illumination, awakening, or transcendence, through the ages.

Here’s Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind (2021), Part IV: UNIVERSAL CONSCIOUSNESS

*Subscribe to our channel to catch premiering further installments of the documentary on YouTube! This film is to be released on YouTube in parts.

OR, watch the documentary in its entirety on Vimeo on demand: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/339083

Other than creating experts, the Ministry’s statement detailed three other objects for the future, which include creating an expanded virtual world (translated from Korean). The government also wants the metaverse platform to focus on industrial convergence and lifestyle, using it for growing Korea’s education industry, media and its cities.

Further, the statement also said that content creators will get support from the government’s strategy. The Ministry will also host hackathons, developer events etc. aimed at fostering the country’s metaverse community, while the statement also mentions forming favourable regulatory systems and laws in order to favour the metaverse.

Topic: James Hughes — The Future of Work (Future Day Talk) Time: Mar 1, 2022 08:00 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81306102463?pwd=eDBldno3cUdZZGcxVHoxNEJ1RkgrUT09 Meeting ID: 813 0610 2,463 Passcode: Q6VzpF

As part of the annual Future Day celebration, James Hughes will join us that may concern you — ‘The Future of Work’. Zoom details coming soon!

Abstract: The pandemic has launched a debate about the future of work around the world. Those who can work remotely have often found they prefer remote or flexible, hybrid options. The Great Resignation has put upward pressure on wages and benefits in the service sector, encouraging the implementation of automation. Climate change mitigation is encouraging a shift towards “green jobs.” Rapid changes in the labor market have made the payoffs of higher education uncertain for young people, while many societies are entering an old-age dependency crisis with too few workers paying taxes for growing numbers of pensioners. Before the pandemic proposals for universal basic income (UBI) were seen as necessary adaptations to imminent technological unemployment, and the during the pandemic many countries provided temporary UBI to keep people safe. We are now poised for a global discussion about whether we need to work at all, and what kinds of jobs are desirable.

Public policy includes efforts by governmental as well as nongovernmental agencies (other than professional associations) to manage genetic enhancement. For example, the International Olympic Committee has a policy on performance-enhancing drugs in sport. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration classified synthetic anabolic steroids as a restricted class of drugs, making it more difficult to get access to them. Such measures will not always be successful. Epoetin alfa (EPO) is a useful medication for the many people who suffer from chronic anemia, including people who must undergo regular renal dialysis. As a consequence, it is in very wide supply for legitimate therapeutic purposes, unlike the synthetic anabolic steroids. Imposing strict limitations on access to EPO would create an enormous inconvenience for the large number of people who benefit from the drug. The fact that some athletes are able to get their hands on EPO is an unintended consequence of having the drug widely available for legitimate therapeutic uses. The appropriate public policy will not be the same, necessarily, for every drug.

By “personal policy” we mean the moral understandings and social practices of individuals, parents, and families, including those moral convictions that would cause them to refrain from unwise or unfair use of genetic enhancement technologies. The Worth of a Child, for example, focuses on ethical issues involving children and parents.11 How does one engage that sort of personal policy response? The means we have are limited but powerful: education, public dialogue, and the encouragement of ethical reflection.

In conclusion, there are four points worth reiterating. First, as we think about genetic enhancement, we should use a broad definition of genetic-enhancement technologies, not merely gene manipulation, but indirect genetic technologies, such as biosynthetic drugs. Second, we should try to anticipate the enhancement temptations of new therapies. Such anticipation may help us in shaping the marketing, availability, or other aspects of those technologies. Third, we should promote the adoption of appropriate public and professional policies. Finally, we should provide public education and dialogue to encourage personal ethical reflection on the appropriate uses and limits of genetic-enhancement technologies.