Marylou Ingram

Dr. Ingram is a Senior Research Scientist and heads the Tissue Engineering & In Vitro Systems program. Her career in medical research and teaching has centered around experimental hematology, radiation biology, cellular immunology and cancer cell biology. She joined HMRI in 1982 to develop the brain tumor immunotherapy project inspired by HMRI co- founder and neurosurgeon, Dr.Hunter Shelden.

Her current work uses a microgravity tissue culture method. Initially funded by NASA,and using a NASA bioreactor, subsequent funding by the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation supported the design and construction of the HMRI Histoid Bioreactor that better met her program’s requirements.

During culture, cells remain suspended in conditions similar to what they might encounter in an orbiting space station. In this environment, the cells organize themselves into tissue-like structures called histoids. These provide a superior model of how actual breast, prostate, pancreas, colon and bladder cancers exist in the body, and how they interact with surrounding non-cancerous tissue. This histoid model shows promise for screening new anticancer drugs, as a reference standard for better tumor diagnosis, and for individualizing therapy. Histoids may also have potential as “seeds” for regenerating replacement tissues in the lab.

Before coming to HMRI, Dr. Ingram had a distinguished career in academic medicine and research, including faculty service at the University of Rochester, Caltech and the University of Miami, at Los Alamos National Laboratory, as a consultant to the National Cancer Institute, the FDA, Brookhaven National Laboratory, NASA and other organizations. She was a pioneer in automated cell analysis, played a key role in developing automated cell analysis systems, and was founding director of the Institute for Cell Analysis at the University of Miami. She received her M.D. degree from the University of Rochester and is trained as a hematologist. She is a member of Sigma Xi and several other scientific organizations.