We are an interdisciplinary research group within the Aflred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering in the
Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California. We are also affiliated with the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine at Keck School of Medicine. |
To develop safe and effective cures for human diseases, we need reliable models of human tissues to understand the underlying biology and test new therapies. However, existing model systems, such as rodents and conventional cell culture, fall short in recapitulating critical features of native human tissues and providing easily-accessible functional outputs. To address this need, we engineer micro-scale mimics of native healthy and diseased human tissues that provide meaningful physiological outputs and are scalable for downstream applications, such as drug screening. We focus primarily on cardiac and skeletal muscle.
To fabricate these platforms, we advance and integrate three core technologies:
1. Establish renewable sources of differentiated human cells.
2. Microfabricate biomimetic cellular microenvironments.
3. Develop tools to quantify engineered tissue structure and function.
We combine these technologies towards three primary applications:
1. Establish fundamental insight into human tissue structure-function relationships.
2. Elucidate multi-cellular mechanisms of human diseases.
3. Develop novel platforms for pre-clinical drug screening.
To fabricate these platforms, we advance and integrate three core technologies:
1. Establish renewable sources of differentiated human cells.
2. Microfabricate biomimetic cellular microenvironments.
3. Develop tools to quantify engineered tissue structure and function.
We combine these technologies towards three primary applications:
1. Establish fundamental insight into human tissue structure-function relationships.
2. Elucidate multi-cellular mechanisms of human diseases.
3. Develop novel platforms for pre-clinical drug screening.