CRAFT Research Symposium

Dr. José L García-Cordero

Advanced Microfluidic Platforms for Scalable Organoid Culture

Organoids have emerged as pivotal 3D in vitro models for biological research, drug discovery, and personalized medicine. However, challenges persist in generating organoids at scale and, for some organoid types, culturing them in suspension within well plate formats suitable for drug screening. This presentation introduces two technologies designed to address these challenges. The first is a hydrogel droplet-based microfluidic technology that efficiently produces large quantities of organoids. The second is the PulsePlate technology, which enables the growth of organoids in suspension within a well plate format. These technology advancements promise to enhance the efficiency and scalability of organoid-based applications in biomedical research.

Bio

José leads the Microtechnologies group at Roche’s Institute of Human Biology (IHB) since August 2021. His group develops innovative technologies that automate and enhance the throughput of in vitro model systems. The team’s work in microengineering, advanced materials, biosensors, and instrumentation has produced nearly a dozen patents to date. He also established the infrastructure and facilities for microfluidic device prototyping at IHB. Prior to joining Roche, José was an Associate Professor at Cinvestav (Mexico) and an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Mayo Clinic (USA), following a postdoctoral fellowship at EPFL (Switzerland).

Prof. Athina E. Markaki

Bioengineered Vascular Networks and Grafts

This talk will highlight my group’s work on vascular networks and grafts for clinical and tissue engineering applications. The first part addresses vascular networks, crucial for nutrient delivery and waste removal in engineered tissues. Insufficient vascularisation in large, densely populated constructs leads to necrotic core formation, hindering fabrication of functional tissues and organs. I will present: (i) A space-filling algorithm for generating biomimetic 3D vascular networks. (ii) A method for fabricating hierarchical 3D vascular networks in hydrogels using sacrificial 3D printing and cellular co-cultures. The second part will focus on fabricating bioengineered grafts from densified collagen hydrogel using a cell-free, non-decellularised approach, enabling true off-the-shelf capability. The grafts are intended to replace synthetic haemodialysis grafts, which connect an artery and a vein for kidney dialysis. Ex vivo and in vivo testing demonstrates that the grafts have sufficient strength for surgical implantation and can support tissue regeneration through re-endothelialisation. Initially tested as artery-to-artery replacements, these grafts will be further evaluated for vascular access applications (artery-to-vein).

Bio

Athina Markaki is a University Professor in the Engineering Department at the University of Cambridge, where she leads the Materials Engineering and Material-Tissue Interaction Group. She earned her diploma in Materials Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens and her PhD from the University of Cambridge. After completing post-doctoral positions at Cambridge and MIT, along with a year in industry, she was appointed to a lectureship in the Engineering Department. She is the recipient of the 2017 Rosetrees Trust Interdisciplinary Award, a European Research Council Starting Grant (2010), an Advanced EPSRC Fellowship (2005), the 2004 De Montford Award at “SET for Britain,” the Young Scientist Prize in 2003 at the 5th Euromech Solid Mechanics Conference (ESMC-5), and awards from the State Scholarships Foundation, the Evgenidio Foundation, and the Technical Chamber of Greece.

Prof. Sarah Hedtrich

Human (disease) models to Tackle Inflammatory and Genetic Diseases of Human Epithelia

Bio

Prof. Hedtrich obtained her PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the Freie Universität Berlin in 2009. During her postdoc, she moved to the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich and Tufts University in Boston, USA. She held one of the prestigious Johanna-Quandt-Professorships at the Berlin Institute of Health @ Charité in Berlin and serves now as a recently appointed Tier I Canada Research Chair in Human Disease Modeling at the School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of British Columbia. Her research centers around inflammatory and genetic diseases of human epithelia with a focus on skin and lungs and bioengineering of complex, human disease models which are leveraged to develop personalized next-generation therapies. She co-/authored over 95 peer-reviewed journal articles in high-impact journals including the ACS Nano, Small, Nature Reviews Bioengineering, and EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Prof. Andrew J. deMello

Microfluidics for Blood-Based Diagnostics

Flow cytometry is a ubiquitous analytical technique for enumerating cellular populations. Because of its quantitative nature and the fact that cells may be probed at throughputs of many thousands per second, flow cytometry is considered the gold standard technique for measuring the physical and chemical properties of a large cellular populations. Although flow cytometry has proved useful in a range of clinical applications, almost all flow cytometers require unacceptably large sample/reagent volumes and do not provide spatially resolved information from within each cell. To address these issues, imaging flow cytometry (IFC) aims to combine the advantages of optical microscopy and flow cytometry to allow the for high-throughput imaging of cells within flowing environments. In principle, IFC engenders enormous enhancements in information content but is attended by numerous technological challenges. We have leveraged the capabilities of microfluidic systems to manipulate, process and order cells in a controlled and high-throughput manner. We have recently developed chip-based imaging flow cytometers that leverage either inertial or viscoelastic forces to perform ultra-high-throughput imaging of cells. Using such systems, we are able to analyze cellular populations at rates approaching 500,000 cells/s. More recently we begun to develop microfluidic platforms able to measure the mechanical properties of cells at rates of up to 100,000 cells per second. Here, fluid elasticity is used to focus and deform cells. We have used these platforms for a range of studies, including cell phenotyping, cytoskeletal drug analysis and identification of malignant lymphocytes in peripheral blood samples. We expect that these platforms will open new opportunities in the assessment of cancers, mechanical phenotyping of rare cells and sensitive diagnostic applications.

Bio

Andrew is currently Professor of Biochemical Engineering and Deputy Chair in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich. Prior to his arrival in Zurich, he was Professor of Chemical Nanosciences and Head of the Nanostructured Materials and Devices Section in the Chemistry Department at Imperial College London. He obtained a 1st Class Degree in Chemistry and PhD in Molecular Photophysics from Imperial College London in 1995 and subsequently held a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests cover a broad range of activities in the general area of microfluidics and nanoscale science. Andrew has given over 400 invited lectures at conferences and universities in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia (including 100 plenary or keynote lectures), has published 425 papers in refereed journals, and co-authored two books. He is currently an Associate Editor for ACS Sensors and sits on the Editorial Boards of Advanced Materials Technologies, Chem and The Journal of Flow Chemistry. He is also co- founder of two spin out companies that commercialize microfluidic technologies. Science originating from the deMello group has been recognized through multiple awards, including the 2002 SAC Silver Medal (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2009 Clifford Paterson Medal (Royal Society), the 2009 Corday Morgan Medal (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2012 Pioneers of Miniaturization Lectureship (Royal Society of Chemistry), the 2020 Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship Award (American Chemical Society), the 2021 Simon-Widmer Award (Swiss Chemical Society) and a 2021 Mendel Lectureship (Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic).