The Mikati Foundation Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Professor of Medical Sciences, and director of the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering, Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic has just been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional distinctions awarded to an engineer. She is the first woman at Columbia University to receive this distinction. Vunjak-Novakovic and her research team have been able to grow bone grafts that can match a patient’s original jaw bone for facial reconstruction surgery to repair injuries, disease, or birth defects. They have also been able to engineer thick, vascularized, and electromechanically functional cardiac tissue, by culturing stem cells, the actual “tissue engineers,” on a scaffold perfused with culture medium to mimic blood flow and stimulated by electrical signals. This research has led to a heart patch that could be laid over injured heart tissue to restore normal function in someone who has suffered a heart attack. Among the innovations coming from her lab is also a cell micropatterning technology to study the initiation of developmental asymmetry and diagnose disease. The goal of her NYSTEM supported research is to investigate the influence of electrical stimulation and conditioning on the function, development, and phenotypic maturation of human embryonic stem (hES) cell– and induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell–derived cardiomyocytes. (Contracts #C026449)