Biography

Michael J Lysaght is a biomedical engineer working in the fields of organ replacement and tissue engineering. His area of specialization is the therapeutic application of synthetic membranes in hemodialysis, apheresis, and tissue engineering. Prior to coming to Brown in 1994, Dr Lysaght's professional career was spent in the Biomedical Industry.

He received an AB from Georgetown University, a BS and MS in Chemical Engineering from MIT and, later in life, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of New South Wales.

Dr. Lysaght worked at Amicon Corporation from 1966 to 1979. Amicon was an exciting and dynamic MIT spin-off back when university-spawned startups were somewhat of a rarity. While at Amicon, he had increasing responsibility in research groups which introduced polysulfone hollow fiber membranes into the extracorporeal therapies for renal failure (1, 2), which developed the first biohybrid artificial pancreas in mice (3), and which demonstrated the technical feasibility of membrane processes for the separation of plasma from whole blood (4). In 1980 he left Amicon, accepting an invitation to spend a year as a guest scientist in the membrane laboratories of Dr. Wolfgang Pusch at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysics in Frankfurt, Germany. Dr. Pusch has since passed away, but in the early eighties, he and his laboratories were a Mecca for rigorous theoretical and experimental studies in membrane transport. Dr. Lysaght decided to extend his expatriate experience and in 1981 and 1982 worked with Dr. Hans Gurland at the University Hospital of Munich. There he conducted laboratory-based and clinical research in hemodialysis transport (5) and membrane plasmapheresis (6). Life in Germany was very agreeable and the opportunity for work experience at both the Max Planck and in a hospital setting was broadening.

In 1984, Dr. Lysaght returned to the United States and joined Baxter International in northern Illinois. Baxter is one of the world's largest medical device companies and the global leader in products for the treatment of renal failure. He served first as Director of Membrane Science and later as Vice President for Renal Research. Although primarily responsible for research management while at Baxter, Dr. Lysaght made several enduring contributions to the literature of peritoneal dialysis (7, 8, 9) including the initial use of "KT/V" to quantify CAPD and the definitive study comparing preservation of residual function in peritoneal and hemodialysis.. In 1989, he left Baxter and returned to New England to help start CytoTherapeutics. CytoTherapeutics was Rhode Island's first biotechnology venture. He served as Vice President and chief technical executive at CytoTherapeutics from 1989 through 1994. In this capacity, he was responsible, along with his colleagues, for the first successful transplantation of immunoisolated xenogeneic cells in man (10, 11). Cytotherapeutics no longer exists in its original form, but its technologies live in several successor companies: stem cell Inc. (Palo Alto, CA), Neurotech Corp. (Lincoln, RI), and Modex Therapeutics SA (Lausunne Switzerland).

Since 1995, he has been at Brown University, where is currently Professor of Medical Science and Engineering. In 1996, he was asked by the late Pierre Galletti to spearhead efforts to increase the local economic impact of Brown-developed biotechnology. This eventually led to the formation of the Rhode Island Center for Cellular medicine, a public-private organization chartered to facilitate the creation of Biotech startups in Rhode Island. Dr. Lysaght served as RICCM's first president from 1996-1999 and is currently treasurer. RICCM, now called the Slater Center for Biomedical Technology, has been instrumental in the creation of over a dozen biotechnology firms. In 2000, Dr. Lysaght assumed responsibility for organization and oversight of the formation of a program and center in Biomedical Engineering at Brown. An undergraduate concentration in biomedical engineering was initiated in 2001; more information is available at http://www.engin.brown.edu/undergrad/NewUndergrad/bioengin/index.html. Research programs in biomaterials, tissue engineering, and neuroengineering are expanding and coalescing.

While at Brown, Dr. Lysaght's laboratory research has focused on new therapies for End Stage Renal Disease (12). He has also conducted and published extensive studies on the demographics and economic impact of organ replacement technology (13, 14) and tissue engineering(15). He was recently described by Baron's as one of the nation's "top medical thinkers."

Dr Lysaght teaches all or part of two undergraduate courses and a "100 level" course.

BI 0008 - Biotechnology Management. This course is designed for Juniors and Seniors who are considering in an industrial career in Biotechnology, or just interested this aspect of the field. It deals with product development, the FDA, patents, case studies, and the human side of entrepeneurship.

BI 0017 - Biotechnology in Medicine. A broad overview of the contemporary medical applications of biology, including pharmaceuticals, implantable and extracorporeal medical devices, organ transplantation, and newly emerging therapies such as xenotransplantation, stem cells, and therapeutic cloning. Originally intended for first year students, this has become an increasingly popular elective for later-year biology majors as well.

BI 0108 - Organ Replacement. Describes the therapy format and physical/quantitativeprinciples of organ replacement and substitutive medicine, including pacemakers, heart-valves, neuroprosthetics, orthopedic implants, hemodialysis, transplantation, and the next generations of organ replacement technology. About half the students are engineering concentrators, the remaining are from general biology and premed.

Dr Lysaght is the author/editor of three books and has contributed over 200 original papers and scholarly reviews to the technical literature. He holds 25 US patents, along with multiple corresponding foreign counterparts. He is a founder of the International Society of Blood Purification, and a current or past officer or board member of many national and international learned societies concerned with organ substitution. In 1994,
he was elected as a founding fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineers (AIMBE). In 1995, he was chairman of the Keystone symposium on Encapsulated Cell Therapy. In 1997, he served as Congress President of the 11th International Congress of the International Society of Artificial Organs in Providence, Rhode Island and in 1998 he hosted the 14th Congress of the International Society of Blood Purification in Newport, Rhode Island.

He lives in East Greenwich, RI with his wife Carmen, a clinical house psychotherapist, with whom he shares a love of the mountains, the ocean, and self actualization.

1. Silverstein ME, Ford CA, Lysaght MJ, Henderson LW: The treatment of intractable fluid overload. New Eng J Med 291:747-751, 1974.

2. Colton CK, Henderson LW, Ford CA, Lysaght MJ: Kinetics of hemodiafiltration, I - in-vitro transport characteristics of a hollow fiber blood ultrafilter. J Lab Clin Med 85 (3): 355-371, 1975.

3. Chick WL, Perna JJ, Lauris V, Low D, Galletti PM, Panol G, Whittemore AD, Like AA, Colton CK, Lysaght MJ: Artificial pancreas using living beta cells: effects on glucose homeostasis in diabetic rats. Science 197:780-782, 1977.

4. Solomon BA, Castino F, Lysaght MJ, Colton CK, Friedman LI: Continuous flow membrane filtration of plasma from whole blood. Trans Amer Soc Artif Int Organs 21:21-5, 1978.5.

5. Lysaght MJ, Schmidt B, Bathien FCA, Gurland HJ: Factors controlling the rate of filtration during spontaneous AV-filtration. Blood Purification 1:50-58, 1983.

6. Lysaght MJ, Samtleben W, Schmidt B, Stoffner D, Gurland HJ: Spontaneous membrane plasmapheresis. Trans Am Soc Artif Intern Organs 29:506-510, 1983.

7. Lysaght MJ, Farrell PC: Membrane Phenomena and mass transfer kinetics in peritoneal dialysis, J Mem Sci 44: 5-33, 1989.

8. Lysaght MJ, Vonesh EF, Gotch F, Ibels L, Keen M, Lindholm B, Nolph KD, Pollock CA, Prowant B, Farrell PC: The influence of dialysis treatment modality on the decline of remaining renal function. ASAIO J 37: 598-604, 1991

9. Lysaght MJ, Pollock CA, Hallett MD, Ibels LS, Farrell PC. The relevance of urea kinetic modeling to CAPD. ASAIO J35: 784-90, 1989.

10. Aebischer P, Buscher E, Joseph J, Favre J, Lysaght M, Rudnick S. Transplantation in humans of encapsulated xenogeneic cells without immunosupression. Transplantation 58: 1275-7, 1994

11. Buscher E, Goddard M, Heyd B, Joseph JM, Favre J, De Tribolet N, Lysaght M, Aebischer P. Immunoisolated xenogeneic chromaffin cell therapy for chronic pain. Anesthesiology 85: 1005-12, 1996

12. O'Loughlin J, Lyssaght MJ. Release of albumin from alginate microspheres abstracts, 28th Symposium. Controlled Release Society. San Diego, CA, June 23--27, 2001.

13. Lysaght, MJ, O'Laughlin J. The demographic scope and economic magnitude of contemporary organ replacement therapies. ASAIO J46: 515-21, 2000.

14. Lysaght, MJ, Maintenance Dialysis Population Dynamics: Current trends and long term implications, JASN. Accepted for publication, May 2001.

15. Lysaght MJ, Reyes J., The growth of maintenance dialysis. Tissue Engineering. Accepted for publication, July 2001.

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