Dr. Edelman is an active intensive care unit cardiologist who runs an integrated physiology research laboratory and directs the Harvard-MIT Biomedical Engineering Center. The Center is dedicated to propelling technology into the clinic through firm mechanistic insight into the operation of these devices. Dr. Edelman's own research interests combine his scientific and medical training. He uses elements of continuum mechanics, digital signal processing and polymeric controlled release technology to examine the cellular and molecular mechanisms that produce accelerated atherosclerosis and transform stable coronary artery disease to unstable coronary syndromes. He and his colleagues have used this knowledge to help create and explain the workings of some of the more successful endovascular implants and drug-eluting stents on the one hand the role of inflammation and growth regulation in vascular disease on the other. His most recent publications have focused on the how tissue engineered cells might be used for the local delivery of growth factors and growth inhibitors in the study of the mechanisms behind, and potential treatments for, tissue repair. Understanding tissues as integrated dynamic community of cells allows the Edelman lab to define health and disease, and to readily investigate the impact of emerging therapies from a mechanistic perspective. As such the laboratory has made important contributions on basic scientific, applied biological and clinical medical levels.
