Arinzeh was born in 1970[4] and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.[5] She became interested in science by conducting imaginary experiments in the kitchen with her mother, who was a home economics teacher.[6] She was encouraged to pursue a STEM career by her high school physics teacher.[7]
Arinzeh worked for Baltimore, Maryland-based Osiris Therapeutics as a product development engineer.[7] In 2001, she returned to academia and started working at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) in Newark, New Jersey,[8] where she founded the first Tissue Engineering and Applied Biomaterials Laboratory at NJIT in the fall of 2001.[10] She was at NJIT until 2022 as a Distinguished Professor of Biomedical Engineering.[8] She joined Columbia University as a Professor in Biomedical Engineering in 2022. She has published over 60 journal articles, conference proceedings, and book chapters.[11]
Her current research focuses on systematic studies of the effect of biomaterial properties on stem cell differentiation.[8] She is known for discovering that mixing stem cells with scaffolding[note 1][12] allows regeneration of bone growth and the repair of tissue damage.[13][14]
She discovered that one person's stem cells could be implanted in another person without causing an adverse immune response.[13] In 2018, she received an QED award to work on the recovery time and cost patients experience after bone grafting procedures.[3]
She was nominated by the Governor of Connecticut to the Connecticut Stem Cell Research Advisory Committee.
She is currently a co-PI and the Director of Diversity of the NSF Science and Technology Center on Engineering Mechano-Biology, which is a multi-institutional center with the University of Pennsylvania and Washington University in St. Louis.[16]
In addition, Arinzeh actively tries to increase representation of minority students in biomedical engineering by being a mentor as part of the Project Seeds program supported by the American Chemical Society. Every summer, she invites 40 to 50 teens from under-represented groups to her lab to learn about engineering and her research.[17]
In 2018, Arinzeh was selected to be a Judge for Nature scientific journal's newly created Innovating Science Panel Award.[10]
2015: The effect of PVDF-TrFE scaffolds on stem cell derived cardiovascular cells. Biotechnology & Bioengineering.[22]
2015: An investigation of common crosslinking agents on the stability of electrospun collagen scaffolds. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research.[23]
2013: Examining the formulation of emulsion electrospinning for improving the release of bioactive proteins from electrospun fibers. Journal of Biomedical Materials Research.[24]
2005: "A comparative study of biphasic calcium phosphate ceramics for human mesenchymal stem-cell-induced bone formation" Biomaterials.[25]
Notes
^Here a "scaffold" is a three-dimensional structure (may be porous), seeded with cells and implanted into a tissue.
"Treena Livingston Arinzeh Receives Innovators Award from NJ Inventors Hall of Fame." New Jersey Institute of Technology, NJIT News Room, 28 Oct. 2013, www6.njit.edu/news/2013/2013-352.php.
