Ioannis Yannas

Biography

Biographical information. Ioannis Yannas was born in Athens, Greece in 1935. His father, Vassilios, co-owned a textile mill and a department store that sold woollen fabrics while his mother, Thalia, worked at home and raised their three children: Pavlos (deceased in 1978), Ioannis and Elizabeth. In 1953 Ioannis entered Harvard College and majored in Chemistry, graduating in 1957 with the A.B. degree. He then entered MIT where he earned a M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering Practice in 1959. After a period of industrial research on polymers at Grace Co., Cambridge, MA, he entered Princeton University where he earned the M.A. degree (1965) and the Ph.D degree (1966), both in Physical Chemistry. His doctoral thesis dealt with the viscoelastic behavior and thermal transitions in gelatin, the amorphous counterpart of the protein, collagen. Since 1966 Yannas has been employed as a faculty member by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He currently holds a joint appointment in the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Biological Engineering Departments. He also holds an appointment at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. He currently teaches classes in Biomaterials-Tissue Interactions, Cell-Matrix Mechanics and Design of Medical Devices and Implants. Ioannis Yannas has been married twice, to Elizabeth Blount in 1961 and to Stamatia Frondistou in 1969. Both marriages ended in divorce. Two children, Tania and Alexis, were born in the second marriage. Biographical information. Ioannis Yannas was born in Athens, Greece in 1935. His father, Vassilios, co-owned a textile mill and a department store that sold woollen fabrics while his mother, Thalia, worked at home and raised their three children: Pavlos (deceased in 1978), Ioannis and Elizabeth. In 1953 Ioannis entered Harvard College and majored in Chemistry, graduating in 1957 with the A.B. degree. He then entered MIT where he earned a M.S. degree in Chemical Engineering Practice in 1959. After a period of industrial research on polymers at Grace Co., Cambridge, MA, he entered Princeton University where he earned the M.A. degree (1965) and the Ph.D degree (1966), both in Physical Chemistry. His doctoral thesis dealt with the viscoelastic behavior and thermal transitions in gelatin, the amorphous counterpart of the protein, collagen. Since 1966 Yannas has been employed as a faculty member by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA. He currently holds a joint appointment in the Mechanical Engineering Department and the Biological Engineering Departments. He also holds an appointment at the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Program. He currently teaches classes in Biomaterials-Tissue Interactions, Cell-Matrix Mechanics and Design of Medical Devices and Implants. Ioannis Yannas has been married twice, to Elizabeth Blount in 1961 and to Stamatia Frondistou in 1969. Both marriages ended in divorce. Two children, Tania and Alexis, were born in the second marriage.

Research Interest

Organ regeneration using scaffolds Regeneration of skin and peripheral nerves Molécular biological mechanism of induced regeneration