Dr. William R. Wagner is the Deputy Director of the McGowan Institute for Regenerative Medicine. In addition, he is Professor of Surgery, Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering at the University of Pittsburgh as well as the Director of Thrombosis Research for the Artificial Heart and Lung Program. He serves as a graduate track coordinator for the Department of Bioengineering for students pursuing the Cellular and Organ Engineering track and teaches courses on biomaterials and tissue engineering in the Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering Departments. He holds a B.S. (Johns Hopkins) and Ph.D. (University of Texas) in Chemical Engineering and has been on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh since 1991. He is the founding editor of the biomaterials journal Acta Biomaterialia, published by Elsevier, and currently serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Biomedical Materials Research, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and the Journal of Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine. In 2006 Dr. Wagner was selected, together with colleague Dr. Michael Sacks, to the "Scientific American 50", the magazine's annual list recognizing leaders in science and technology from the research, business and policy fields. Dr. Wagner has served as Chairman for the Gordon Research Conference on Biomaterials: Biocompatibility & Tissue Engineering as well as the First World Congress of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society. He has served on numerous NIH and NSF study sections and has been a member of external review committees for national and international organizations focused on bioengineering and regenerative medicine. Dr. Wagner was elected in 2000 as a fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering.
Dr. Wagner's research interests are generally in the area of cardiovascular engineering with projects that address medical device biocompatibility and design, tissue engineering, and targeted imaging. His research group is comprised of graduate students in Bioengineering and Chemical Engineering as well as post-doctoral fellows with backgrounds in surgery and polymer chemistry. Dr. Wagner and his group enjoy working across the spectrum from in vitro to clinical studies. The McGowan Institute and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center are uniquely positioned to allow such broad-based projects to flourish and complement one another. Researchers within Dr. Wagner's group are afforded the opportunity to observe first-hand the clinical successes and failures of currently employed cardiovascular devices while concurrently working on projects that attempt to describe the current modes of failure, test solutions for the current device shortcomings, or develop technologies that may find application as future cardiovascular therapies. The front-line experience afforded by the clinical environment has proven invaluable in the learning experience of group members, not to mention the input such experience has on the creative environment.
Current research projects in the Wagner Group include:
- Biomaterials for Cardiovascular Tissue Engineering
- Cardiovascular Device Biocompatibility
- Modeling Oxygenator Performance and Biocompatibility
- Development of Targeted Ultrasound Contrast Agents
- Modification of Tissue with Polymers In Situ
- Myocardial Tissue Engineering