When Ian Smith was 15 years old, his father gave him an article on bionic eyes - glasses that connected to the brain allowing a blind person a chance to see shapes and colors for the first time.
"That really intrigued me," Smith said. "I thought, 'Wow, if I can do something like that I would feel like I had done something with my life.'"
Nine years later, Smith is working toward the development of suitable substitutes for people who are missing pieces of bone.
If a person shatters a bone in his or her leg and is left with a portion of missing bone, there are two alternatives. In one scenario, the remaining pieces are stuck together - leaving one leg shorter than the other - or a "scaffold" can be introduced to bridge the gap, he said.
Smith said a bone is made up of two basic parts - a mineral portion, which most people know as the actual bone, and a biological portion made up of cellular material inside.
Smith and other students in his lab are working on a ceramic substitute to replace the mineral portion of the bone. The ceramic would allow cellular material to regenerate, filling the gap.
"Eventually we would have a new piece of bone," Smith said. "We would replace it, so it was like it was never gone."
The materials science graduate student explains by mimicking the environment of a living human body and introducing materials to it, he is able to observe how the ceramic replacement would interact inside the human body and if a new bone would grow.
"If this works, it's a way to better a person's situation as well as possible," he said. "It's just a way to improve the quality of life for somebody that couldn't improve it before."
Smith said he is able to take what he knows about science, apply it and get results he can see.
"I've learned that nothing works the first time or several times after that," he said. "It really has opened up the whole world of medicine to me and how there is a bridge between medicine and engineering that I really didn't know much about."
Biomedical engineering can save lives, Smith said.
"If somebody is sitting there waiting for a heart transplant, sometimes the transplant doesn't come and that person dies," Smith explains. "If you could just call up the insurance people and say we want this certain heart, there is no waiting and they build it for you.
"You've saved that person's life."
MSU is encouraging the development of Smith's research with the addition of a new 4,000-square-foot lab for biomedical engineering tissue work in the Engineering Building, said Melissa Baumann, associate professor of chemical engineering and materials science.
With the new lab, Baumann said the engineering department is able to attract prospective students and faculty and to build a stronger Spartan presence in the biomedical research world.
"I think eventually we hope to play a significant role," she said.
"This is something we are growing toward and moving toward."
