Reimagining Fleshy Futures
Tissue Engineering the 21st Century
Hello my lovely subscribers,
We’re about to turn this silly little blog into a serious one that at times may be seriously silly. I started writing this newsletter at the beginning of 2021 as a way to practice popular science writing without anyone really watching (except of course for you, my dear early subscribers). I challenged myself to write one thing every month on top of my new full-time research job as a way to explore ideas I felt passionately about. Ideas I wanted to understand more deeply.
Since I started this blog, a lot in my life has changed. I moved out of the apartment I was subletting alone during the period of intense covid isolation. Moved in with 3 of my best friends. Moved out again. And moved in with my long-time boyfriend. I learned how to knit. Threw a funeral-themed birthday party. Read A LOT of science fiction short stories. Started riding a bike again. Took a few writing courses. And really came into my own as a research scientist. All that being said, I’m ready to come back to Fleshy Futures with a more mature and committed direction.
I do hope you choose to stick around as we change the focus of this blog, but I will not be offended if you decide Fleshy Futures is no longer for you. Regardless, thank you for the early support on this writer’s journey!
To my enthusiasts for living materials of all sorts,
I’m looking forward to building a fleshier future with you,
Matthew
(Re)-Introducing Fleshy Futures: Tissue Engineering the 21st Century
Written by a working tissue engineer and scientist (me!), Fleshy Futures: Tissue Engineering the 21st Century will highlight the scientists, engineers, and, artists developing cutting-edge tissue engineering technologies. We're interested in telling stories about the people wrestling with the challenges of biology on many fronts, highlighting the barriers preventing regenerative biotechnologies from scaling.
We’ll talk to the clinicians and orthopedic researchers developing solutions to keep an aging global population active. From tissue engineered intervertebral discs to living knee replacements. We’ll chat with the renegades pioneering the field of cellular agriculture, bringing tissue engineered muscle and fat from the lab to our tables. We’ll discuss with scientists how biomaterials can play a role in battling the climate crisis. We’ll sit down with ecologists studying symbiosis and examine how those relationships can inform the coculture systems we use to model and create complex tissues. Bioethicists touting the latest craze: designer pig organs and decellularized animal matrices. Architects and designers looking to build with living materials. All mutually driven by tissue engineering technologies aiming to create a better future for people and planet.
What to Expect
Thoughtful interviews with experts that seek to answer my many questions about our field. Questions like: Why are growth factors so expensive? Can we really make tissue-engineering work for “off-the-shelf” applications? Should we be more focused on a patient’s microbiome?
Throughout, scientific information may occasionally be interwoven with personal stories, talk of our favorite science fiction movies, passages from novels, and other extraneous topics that keep the interviews personal and keep our imaginations fluid.
As time goes on, I’d love to also include the latest news from the field as well as announcements from subscribers to our Fleshy Futures Substack community. All in due time. All in due time.
Why subscribe?
This blog is definitely worth subscribing to if…
You’re a scientist, engineer, regulator, funder, communicator, designer, artist, or entrepreneur currently working in the tissue engineering/regenerative medicine/biomaterials space.
You’re just looking for a place that writes about tissue engineering in a new, interesting way. Unless you follow individual scientists or journals on Twitter, you probably don’t have a reliable source for keeping up with tissue engineering news. And the sources we do have are very formal, dry, and focused mostly on new publications. Fleshy Futures is your casual, fun, more human and less clinical source of information that takes a deep and nuanced look at regenerative technologies.
You’re a dreamer (or at least part of you is). Because your love for science fiction has shaped your identity. You delight in a future as fleshy as your imagination and you relish in the idea of discovery, of turning science fiction into science fact.
But you’re also a realist. You have real concerns about the current trajectory of technology and society. You want to know about the regenerative technologies under development or coming to market NOW, not decades from now, and you want to understand the real challenges in the way of meaningful change.
You’re looking for new perspectives. The potential applications for tissue engineering are broad and diverse. And the perspectives that will influence the development of these technologies are extremely interdisciplinary. Subscribe to Fleshy Futures for a different perspective than the one you find at your regular academic conference or industry meetup.