Summary: Andrew Pelling, an award winning Scientist, Professor, TED Senior Fellow and entrepreneur. His work and innovations have been featured in Wired, Motherboard, Scientific American, Popular Science, BBC and more. Andrew directs and manages the Pelling Research Lab, out of the University of Ottawa. The lab uses low-cost, open source materials and methods to explore new technologies and ideas. He has, for instance, created human body parts made from plants and grown living skins on LEGOs – innovations with the potential to replace prohibitively expensive commercial biomaterials. Andrew has also founded pHacktory, a street-level research lab in Ottawa that amplifies community ideas through a potent mixture of craft, serendipity and curiosity. Andrew joins us to share his story, what motivated him to take a completely different approach to research and academics, what it’s been like creating significant impact through his biomaterial innovations, what it’s like building and growing his open source based biomedical research company Spiderwort, what he’s looking to do with pHacktory, and much more!
