Nina Tandon is leading the charge of biology’s industrial revolution. She is the founder and CEO of EpiBone, the world’s first company growing living human bone for skeletal reconstruction. The benefits of this revolutionary stem cell technology, which has already been approved by the FDA for clinical trial, include simplified surgery, improved bone formation, and shorter recovery times for patients. “Being able to use your own cells means you’re empowered to heal yourself as well,” says Tandon, who also co-authored Super Cells: Building with Biology, a book cataloguing the latest biotech inventions “using nature’s building block: the cell.”
A TED Senior Fellow (she’s spoken at three different TED conferences) and Adjunct Professor of Electrical Engineering at the Cooper Union, Tandon has a Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union, a Master’s in Bioelectrical Engineering from MIT, a PhD in Biomedical Engineering, and an MBA from Columbia University. Her PhD research focused on studying electrical signaling in the context of tissue engineering, and has worked with cardiac, skin, bone, and neural tissue.