Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre Moscow, ID
Ryan Driskell, PhD
Head of the Fibroblast and Skin Regeneration Laboratory, School of Molecular Biosciences, Washington State University
Face/Off— Face on or off?
Program Description
Dr. Ryan Driskell, head of the Fibroblast and Skin Regeneration Laboratory at the School of Molecular Biosciences in Washington State University, discusses the cutting-edge science behind skin regeneration and the potential for facial transplants. This discussion prompts the intriguing question: Did John Woo predict a future where someday we might all be able to look like Nicolas Cage?
Presented At
Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre Moscow, ID
Film Synopsis
To foil a terrorist plot, an FBI agent undergoes facial transplant surgery to assume the identity of the criminal mastermind who murdered his only son, but the criminal wakes up prematurely and seeks revenge.
Obsessed with bringing terrorist Castor Troy (Nicolas Cage) to justice, FBI agent Sean Archer (John Travolta) tracks down Troy, who has boarded a plane in Los Angeles. After the plane crashes and Troy is severely injured, possibly dead, Archer undergoes surgery to remove his face and replace it with Troy’s. As Archer tries to use his disguise to elicit information about a bomb from Troy’s brother, Troy awakes from a coma and forces the doctor who performed the surgery to give him Archer’s face.
Photo credit: Buena Vista
About the Speaker
Dr. Driskell is the head of the Fibroblast and Skin Regeneration Laboratory at the School of Molecular Biosciences in Washington State University. He trained as a Cell and Developmental Biologists in the laboratory of Dr. John Engelhardt at the University of Iowa where he received his Ph.D. in 2006 studying lung biology and Wnt signaling. Dr. Driskell did his post-doctoral training in Dr. Fiona Watt’s Laboratories at Cambridge University and King’s College London in the UK, where he established a functional fibroblast lineage hierarchy that is important in regulating the architectural nature of skin development and wound repair. The Driskell Laboratory utilizes the transgenic mouse technologies in conjunction with molecular and histological techniques to deduce an understanding to induce skin regeneration.