The Fires of Adversity

Biomedical materials science hits stride despite setback

Dr. Jason Griggs was still new to the University of Mississippi Medical Center when disaster struck the Department of Biomedical Materials Science.

In October 2007, just two months after Griggs joined UMMC to take over as chair of the department, a fire broke out on the fifth floor of the School of Dentistry and consumed the metallurgy lab. It was an inauspicious start for the Texas researcher.

A year-and-a-half later, the department has bounced back, and by springtime, the fifth floor will be home not only to a more advanced metallurgy lab space, but a new cell-culture and tissue-engineering lab as well.

Repairs to the building were estimated around $500,000, and reconstruction has opened the door to make improvements on the floor plan and maximize space in each room in the laboratory.

The new metallurgy lab will come equipped with more capabilities than it had before the fire, thanks to what Griggs calls “advances in research equipment and phasing-out of the old models.” Capabilities will include adding mass-spectrometry (ICP-MS) to the lab’s chemical analysis system.

“This is the technology for identification of trace evidence that you see on criminal-investigation TV shows,” Griggs explained.

For the moment, metallurgy lab equipment is housed on the ground floor where it’s used for a range of tasks, including quality testing and analyzing the properties of metals and implant alloys. Much of the failure-analysis work is the result of a multi-year contract the metallurgy lab has with Synthes, a global medical-implant manufacturer.

“Our contract is to certify the consistent quality of incoming materials that will be used to manufacture those implants,” Griggs said. In fact, work is already more than halfway completed on this year’s contract work.

Also temporarily located on the ground floor is the new cell-culture and tissue-engineering laboratory that features periodontal research, a Micro CT scanner and computer-modeling software. One research project currently underway in the laboratory involves creating an artificial liver to be used in studies on how fats affect the liver.

Dr. Buford Gilbert, interim dean of the School of Dentistry, said faculty research is thriving despite the prolonged displacement caused by the fire.

“Faculty involvement is up, and our extramural funding continues to increase,” said Gilbert. “So much of this is to be credited to Dr. Griggs with his ability to organize and coordinate our faculty and students to enable all of us to work together to continuously improve our research program.”

Griggs came to the Medical Center from Texas A&M’s Baylor College of Dentistry, where he served as graduate program director and vice chair of the Department of Biomaterials Sciences. He said he chose to relocate to Jackson partly because he was looking for the right balance between an urban and rural environment.

He replaced Dr. Lyle Zardiackas, who remained to continue his research.

-Matt Westerfiled

2009-03-02 00:00:00 3514