“Recreating Human Physiology on a Chip: A Tale of Microreactors, 3D Printed Tissues and Real-Time Biosensors”
A major challenge in identifying new drugs is to test the efficacy and safety of the candidate molecules. This is one of the major reasons that it now costs billions of dollars and nearly a decade to get a drug to the market. This is because the current methods of using tissue culture dishes or small animal models do not recreate the complexity of human tissues. Our goal is to overcome these challenges by engineering systems that can recreate the behavior of human physiology. To achieve this we have 3D printed tissues, made of cells and materials, within microreactors that can be connected to each other through microfluidics. The 3D printing process can be used to recreate the human tissue microarchitecture whereas patient-derived cells can be used to engineer structures that are similar to a patient’s normal or diseased tissues. Furthermore, to non-invasively monitor the behavior of these miniaturized tissues we have developed advanced optical and biochemical sensors. In this talk I will discuss our advances in making these organs-on-a-chip systems and their use in enabling personalized medicine.
Date/Time:
Date(s) - Apr 06, 2018
10:00 am - 11:00 am
Location:
Boelter Hall 3400
420 Westwood Plaza Los Angeles CA 90095