Jim Brenner, Ph.D.

Since 2013, Dr. Brenner has specialized in maker education and on how to automate tissue engineering. Learning how to disinfect 3D printed tissue scaffolding led to a company named Chem-Free Solutions (https://www.chem-freesolutions.com), which makes an ultraviolet disinfection tile for hospitals and assisted living facilities. Unlike UV lamps, it uses six different LED's to eradicate all bacteria and viruses, instead of missing critical ones like MRSA and Clostridium difficile. That work funds his research in the tissue engineering test bed area.

He is building a bioreactor array with the full complement of traditional chemical engineering sensors, but also a cytokine sensor for detecting the inflammatory response of growing tissues when exposed to a variety of inputs. In support of the tissue engineering test bed mission, most of his research group is putting together a hybrid of a nanoparticle tracking analyzer, a confocal laser scanning microscope, a nanopositioning system, and a zeta particle analyzer to eventually watch cells move toward their eventual tissues in the presence of electric and magnetic fields, along with growth and differentiation factors.

Dr. Brenner's maker education initiative and prior nanotechnology experience is being converted into an electronic textbook for the Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network (KEEN).