Nano- and Microfabricated Hydrogels for Regenerative Engineering

Speaker: Ali Khademhosseini, PhD
Affiliation: Dept. of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Abstract

Engineered materials that integrate advances in polymer chemistry, nanotechnology, and biological sciences have the potential to create powerful medical therapies. Our group aims to engineer tissue regenerative therapies using water-containing polymer networks, called hydrogels,that can regulate cell behavior. Specifically, we have developed photocrosslinkable hybrid hydrogels that combine natural biomolecules with nanoparticles to regulate the chemical, biological, mechanical and electrical properties of gels.  These functional scaffolds induce the differentiation of stem cells to desired cell types and direct the formation of vascularized heart or bone tissues. Since tissue function is highly dependent on architecture, we have also used microfabrication methods, such as microfluidics, photolithography, bioprinting, and molding, to regulate the architecture of these materials. We have employed these strategies to generate miniaturized tissues.  To create tissue complexity, we have also developed directed assembly techniques to compile small tissue modules into larger constructs. It is anticipated that such approaches will lead to the development of next-generation regenerative therapeutics and biomedical devices.

Biography

Ali Khademhosseini is a Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and a faculty at the Harvard-MIT’s Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and as well as an Associate Faculty at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He is also a Junior Principal Investigator at Japan’s World Premier International – Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR) at Tohoku University where he directs a satellite laboratory. In addition, he is an eminent scholar at Konkuk University in Korea, as well as a Hi-Ci Professor at King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. His research is based on developing micro- and nanoscale biomaterials to control cellular behavior with particular emphasis in developing engineered materials and systems for tissue engineering. He is also developing ‘organ-on-a-chip’ systems that aim to mimic human response to various chemicals in vitro. In addition, his laboratory is developing technologies to control the formation of vascularized tissues with appropriate microarchitectures as well as regulating stem cell differentiation within microengineered systems. He has edited multiple books / journal special issues and is an author on >450 peer-reviewed journal articles, editorials and review papers, >60 book chapters/edited books and ~20 patent/disclosure applications. His work has been published in leading journals and routinely highlighted in international media. He has been cited >23,000 times and has an H-index of 80. Also, he has given over >250 invited seminars and keynote lectures.

Date/Time:
Date(s) - Aug 17, 2016
4:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Location:
CNSI – Auditorium
570 Westwood Plaza, Los Angeles CA 90095