PROJECTS
Microvascular regeneration and biology in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes
We are interested in uncovering the principles that govern vascularization during organ regeneration for application in regenerative medicine with particular focus on developing new cell-based therapies, increasing cell retention and vessel maturation/stabilization.
In addition, we aim to understand how different diseases such as diabetes and arterio-venous malformations affect revascularization.
Tissue engineering and organ regeneration
We use human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells to engineer complex cardiac and pancreatic tissues for regenerative medicine applications in cardiac diseases and diabetes, for the study of tissue assembly and function as well as the relevant mechanistic pathways.
We combine tissue engineering approaches with revascularization techniques to develop complex tissues for in vivo applications, such as our work on the effective vascularization of infarcted hearts to promote hiPSC-cardiomyocyte survival and functional recovery and on the transplantation of human islets or hESC-derived pancreatic progenitors for the reversal of diabetes.
Organs-on-a-chip
We are interested in developing personalized “microvasculature-on-a-chip” devices by combining advances in microfluidics and “organ-on-a-chip” technology with primary vascular cell types derived from individual patients and isogenic cells with a ‘corrected’ mutations. This approach will deliver microscale models of blood vessel networks that exhibit precise mimicry of the physiological microenvironment while also representing the unique cellular characteristics of a given individual. Our goal is to to generate vascularized tissues for applications in pre-clinical drug testing and for fundamental science studies, such as the recently-described model of arterio-venous malformations (AVM) on chip. We are using the AVM-on-a-chip model to shed light into lesion initiation, development and characteristics as well as to assess the efficacy of potential drugs.
Following up on our previous work, we continue working on developing cardiac disease models related to congenial and acquired diseases (e.g. human cardiac fibrosis-on-a-chip and 3D model of complex human arrhythmias). We use human embryonic and induced pluripotent stem cells to engineer cardiac tissues for drug screening purposes, regenerative medicine applications and for the study of cardiac biology and development.
Ryan Yee working on the 3D bioprinter
Sonia Taib and omar mourad observing fluorescent stained images
sara vasconcelos holding a microfluidic organ-on-a-chip device
