New planetarium show explores the building blocks of life

Carnegie, Jan/Feb 2003

Tissue Engineering for Life, a new Buhl Planetarium show premiering in January, is an innovative and educational program focusing on tissue engineering... and we don't mean Kleenex.

Following in the footsteps of Journey into the Living Cell and Grey Matters: The Brain Show, the new Tissue Engineering for Life investigates the science of growing molecules, cells, tissues, and organs to replace defective or injured ones. The most well-known type of tissue engineering is skin grafting for burn victims, but this science also encompasses technologies that improve surgical operations and diagnoses.

"If we can fly over the surface of Mars, why not fly over the surface of a cell?" says Buhl Planetarium Director John Radzilowicz of the show.

And Buhl Planetarium offers the perfect immersive, interactive environment in which to do just that. Combining the best computer 3-D animation, scientific imagery, art, and sound, audiences will see how the body grows, works, functions, and repairs itself all the way down to the cellular level. As a special bonus, audiences get to decide what they will see and learn about by "voting" on a keypad attached to their armrest.

"It's total immersion," says Radzilowicz. "If we're talking about a bone, we're going to take you inside a bone."

The program will be shown in a modular format over the next 21 years. The first module is dedicated to bones -how bone tissue grows, what can go wrong, and how tissue engineering can heal injuries. Later modules will cover stem cell research, skin grafting, and organ transplant. So a returning viewer could see a totally different show each visit.

"It's an exciting program, where you get a unique look at the exciting technology taken from today's headlines," says Radzilowicz.

Tissue Engineering for Life is funded by the National Institutes of Health and sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare.