Robert M. Nerem, Ph.D.
Professor and Director
Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience
Georgia Institute of Technology

Dr. Nerem joined Georgia Tech in 1987 and currently serves as the Director of the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience at Georgia Institute of Technology. He also is the Parker H. Petit Professor.

He received his Ph.D. in 1964 from Ohio State University and joined the faculty there in the Department of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, being promoted to Professor in 1972 and serving from 1975-1979 as Associate Dean for Research in the Graduate School. From 1979 to 1986 he was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston. Professor Nerem is the author of more than 100 refereed journal articles.

He is a former President of the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering [1988-91] and also of the International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine [1991-1994]. He is a past Chairman of the United States National Committee on Biomechanics [1988-91], and he served as Technical Editor, American Society of Mechanical Engineers [ASME] Journal of Biomechanical Engineering [1988-1997]. He is a founding Fellow and was the initial President of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering [1992-1994]. He also is Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Fellow, Council of Arteriosclerosis, American Heart Association; Fellow, American Physical Society; and Fellow, ASME. In 1989 he received the H. R. Lissner Award from ASME and in 1998 the Theo Pilkington Outstanding Biomedical Engineering Educator Award from the American Society for Engineering Education. He was the Konrad Witzig Memorial Lecturer in 1986 for the Cardiovascular System Dynamics Society, the ALZA Distinguished Lecturer in 1991 for the Biomedical Engineering Society , and the ASME Robert Thurston Lecturer in 1984. In 1988 Professor Nerem was elected to the National Academy of Engineering [NAE] and currently serves on the NAE Council.

In 1992 he was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. In March 1990 Professor Nerem was presented with an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris, and in 1994 he was elected a Foreign Member of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1998 he was inducted as an Honorary Fellow in the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in the United Kingdom and also elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Professor Nerem has served on the State of Georgia Governor's Advisory Council of Science and Technology Development [1992-1995] and on the Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health [NIH] National Center for Research Resources [1994-1998]. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of Advanced Tissue Sciences, Inc. [LaJolla, California] and of AtheroGenics, Inc. [Norcross, Georgia]. Research interests include biomechanics, atherosclerosis, vascular biology, and cellular and tissue engineering.

Joe Palca
Science Correspondent - Special Correspondent
Sounds Like Science - National Public Radio

Joe Palca is special correspondent for Sounds Like Science. When he is not explaining the physics of roller coasters or the nature of time for Sounds Like Science, he covers a wide range of science and medicine topics for National Public Radio [NPR] news magazines.

Before Palca became a journalist, he was a research scientist. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz in physiological psychology. His doctoral research focused on how human beings regulate their body temperature during sleep. He has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles.

In 1982, Palca left the lab, starting out as an award-winning television producer at WDVM-TV in Washington, D.C. Later, Palca moved to print journalism, working for Nature and Science magazines.

Palca began reporting for NPR in 1992. In 1994, he won the Ohio State Award for his piece on the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. And most recently, Joe won the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady-James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public.

Joe Palca is also president-elect of the National Association of Science Writers.

Sounds Like Science is the fun weekly science show from NPR News hosted by Ira Flatow with Science Correspondent Joe Palca. Sounds Like Science takes the best of NPR science news coverage, stories about the science of everyday things, fun facts, humor and music, and gives it to you every weekend for your listening pleasure.

Nancy L. Parenteau, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President - Research and Development
Organogenesis, Inc.

Dr. Nancy L. Parenteau, since August, 1995 has served as Organogenesis, Inc. Senior Vice President for Research and Development and Chief Scientific Officer. Between February 1994 and August 1995 she was Organogenesis' Vice President for Cell and Tissue Science. Prior to this she served as the Director of Cell Biology Research.

Organogenesis, Inc. designs, develops and manufactures medical products containing living cells and/or natural connective tissue. The Company focuses on programs to replace, repair, or support damaged tissues and organs. The Company's product development focus includes living tissue replacements, cell-based organ assist devices and other tissue-engineered products.

Two Organogenesis, Inc. products cleared for marketing in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] - Apligraf(tm) [Graftskin] and GraftPatch(tm)

Dennis L. Polla
Earl E. Bakken Professor
Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering
University of Minnesota

Dennis L. Polla received B.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Physics, a M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering, and an E.E. degree from M.I.T. He received his Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering and M.B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Polla has held faculty teaching positions at the University of California, Berkeley and Yale University. He has been a faculty member at the University of Minnesota since 1987 and currently is the Earl E. Bakken Professor and Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He also holds regular academic appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology.

Dr. Polla's research interests are in microelectromechanical systems [MEMS], biomedicine, integrated circuits, and microelectronic materials. He has served as the University's director of the Microtechnology Laboratory since 1994. Dr. Polla is a former Presidential Young Investigator, recipient of a W. M. Keck Award for Engineering Teaching Excellence, and member of several defense and national security advisory groups.

Barry A. Solomon
Executive Vice President - Circe Biomedical, Incorporated

Dr. Barry A. Solomon is currently Executive Vice President of Circe Biomedical, Inc. and newly formed, wholly-owned subsidiary of W.R. Grace & Co. located in Lexington, Massachusetts. In this capacity, he has principal responsibility for the general administrative, manufacturing, and human resource operations focused on the commercialization of combination membrane/cell systems for applications to bioartificial organs. Within the company, he has also had responsibility for the research, development, clinical, and regulatory activities.

Previously, Dr. Solomon was Vice President for Biomedical and Biotechnology Research with Grace's Corporate Research Division in which he oversaw the overall operation of the Division's Lexington Research Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts. He managed numerous biomedical research activities including the development of new membranes and related systems for high performance hemodializers, hybrid artificial organs, hemoadsorption therapy, extracorporeal blood filtration and solid-phase diagnostics. In addition, Dr. Solomon was responsible for various biotechnology activities at the Research Division's Washington Research Center in Columbia, Maryland such as programs on advanced bioreactor systems, the development and characterization of new biocompatible polymers, and bovine genetics and cloning.

He was director of Research for Amicon Corporation from 1977 to 1981 when he was promoted to Vice President for Advanced Technology. Dr. Solomon joined Grace in 1983 when Amicon was acquired by Grace. In 1985, Dr. Solomon was named Vice President of Membrane and Biomedical Research in Grace's Research Division.

Dr. Solomon has made significant technical contributions on the development of an implantable membrane-based artificial pancreas for the treatment of insulin-dependent diabetes and an extracorporeal liver assist device for application to acute liver failure. He has also been instrumental in the development if new membranes and devices for hemodiafiltration, plasmapheresis, and LDL-cholesterol removal. Dr. Solomon has co-authored over 100 publications and presentations principally in these areas.

Dr. Solomon earned his B.E.S. in chemical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 1969 and his Ph.D. in biochemical/biomedical engineering from the Department of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Yale University in 1973. Following a postdoctoral fellowship in the Chemical Engineering Department at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he because a departmental Lecturer in Bioengineering.

He has been elected a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineers. In addition, Dr. Solomon is currently a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs, the New York Academy of Science, and Sigma Xi. At the Johns Hopkins University, he serves on the Industrial Advisory Committee of the Biomedical Engineering Department and is Chairman of the Visiting Committee of the Biomedical Engineering Department and has recently served as the National Secretary for Hopkins' Society of Engineering Alumni. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering.

Susan M. Wolf
Associate Professor of Law and Medicine Opperman Research Scholar ~ University of Minnesota Law School

Susan M. Wolf is Associate Professor of Law and Medicine and an Opperman Research Scholar at the University of Minnesota Law School, as well as a Faculty Member in the University's Center for Bioethics. She received her A.B. summa cum laude from Princeton University in 1975 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1980, with graduate work at Harvard University,

After clerking for a federal judge and practicing law for several years at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York, in 1984 she became a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and then Associate for Law at the Hastings Center, a not-for-profit research institute now in Garrison, NY specializing in biomedical ethics. She also taught law and medicine at New York University Law School for six years as an Adjunct Associate Professor. She was a Fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University in 1992-93, before joining the Minnesota faculty in the Fall of 1993.

Professor Wolf has served on a variety of governmental and institutional panels, including the New York City AIDS Review Panel, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Ethics Committee, and the American Bar Association [ABA] Coordinating Group on Bioethics and the Law. She has acted as advisor on various topics to the U. S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association [AMA], and others. She is a member of the Editorial Board for the journal of the New York Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of The Hastings Center, and Chair of the Association of American Law Schools' [AALS] Section on Law, Medicine and Health Care. She is a frequent lecturer, both in the United States and abroad.

Professor Wolf is the author or coauthor of numerous articles and book chapters that have appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine, the Journal of the American Medical Association [JAMA], the American Journal of Public Health, the Hastings Center Report, the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, the American Journal of Law & Medicine, the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, various law reviews, and other publications. She directed the Hastings Center project that produced the influential book, Guidelines on the Termination of Life-Sustaining Treatment and the Care of the Dying [Indiana University Press, 1987], and is editor of a volume entitled Feminism & Bioethics: Beyond Reproduction, published in 1996 by Oxford University Press. She writes frequently on terminal care, assisted suicide and euthanasia, genetics, assisted reproduction, women's health care, managed care, and other topics in health law and bioethics.