When cancer patients lose tissue and bone, this engineer replaces and repairs them.

Cancer treatment can save a patient’s life, but it often leaves substantial damage in its wake. When surgeons remove cancerous tumors, they frequently take out significant portions of adjacent tissue and bone. This can alter a patient’s appearance and impair bodily functions, affecting their physical and mental well-being during recovery.

Now, tissue engineers at Dartmouth are developing methods to repair, rehabilitate, and replace such damaged tissue. Their work, led by Katie Hixon, PhD, clinical assistant professor of orthopaedics at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and assistant professor of engineering at Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering, aims to improve the quality of life for patients after cancer treatment.