Seminar: Microengineered Physiological Biomimicry: Human Organs-on-Chips

Abstract

Remarkable progress in life science and technology in the past century has advanced our fundamental understanding of the human body beyond our imagination. The ever-increasing knowledge of human anatomy and biology, however, has done surprisingly little to improve the way we emulate and probe the complex inner workings of the human body. Even today, our ability to model human physiological systems relies on the century-old practice of cell culture or animal experimentation that has raised significant scientific, economic and ethical concerns. The paucity of predictive and human-relevant model systems is emerging as a critical impediment to our scientific endeavors for a wide variety of biomedical applications. This talk will present the interdisciplinary research efforts to develop advanced in vitro models engineered to reconstitute the structural and functional complexity of human organs. Specifically, the talk will focus on i) bioinspired microsystems that mimic the alveoli and airways of the human lung during health and disease, ii) a blinking eye-on-a-chip microdevice that emulates the ocular surface of the human eye and iii) microengineered physiological models of human reproductive organs.   

About the speaker

Dan Huh is assistant professor and Wilf Family Term Endowed Chair in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a pioneer of “organ-on-a-chip” technology, and his research group at Penn focuses on developing microengineered models of human physiological systems for a wide variety of biomedical applications. Huh has won several honors and awards including the Lush Prize, McPherson Distinguished Lectureship, CRI Technology Impact Award, John J. Ryan Medal from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Design of the Year Award from London Design Museum, NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award, TEDx Fellow, NC3Rs Annual Award, Lifetime Membership from the MOMA, SLAS Innovation Award from the Society for Lab Automation and Screening, Scientific Breakthrough of the Year from American Thoracic Society, Best Publication Award and Best Postdoctoral Award from the Society of Toxicology, Wyss Technology Development Fellowship from Harvard, Distinguished Achievement Award from Michigan, Widmer Award from microTAS, and Horace H. Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship.

Hosted by Professor Jonathan Song.