Events

CPM Seminar Series - Prof. Milica Radisic

Date: 20 January 2027   Time: 15:00 - 16:00     

Immune Cells as Architects of Function in Vascularized Organs-on-a-Chip

Organ-on-a-chip technologies have transformed the study of cardiovascular physiology and disease by enabling human-relevant, mechanistically informative models that overcome the biological limitations of conventional two-dimensional cultures and animal systems. Heart-on-a-chip and vasculature-on-a-chip platforms integrate three-dimensional tissue architectures with defined cellular composition, electromechanical stimulation, and spatiotemporally controlled biochemical cues to recapitulate key features of native cardiac and vascular microenvironments.

Despite significant advances, the generation of stable, functional, and perfusable vascularized cardiac tissues remains a central challenge in the field. This presentation highlights how organ-on-a-chip technologies can be leveraged to reproduce higher-order organ functions, with a particular emphasis on innovations developed in the Radisic laboratory. These include the Biowire heart-on-a-chip platform for cardiac maturation and functional assessment; the AngioChip and inVADE platforms for engineering perfusable vasculature in cardiac and hepatic tissues; and bioengineered substrates that mimic the fractal geometry of the kidney glomerulus for kidney-on-a-chip applications. The integration of advanced 3D printing and biofabrication strategies is also discussed as a means to improve device scalability, throughput, and reproducibility, while enabling cell culture on substrates that are soft, permeable, and mechanically robust.

A major focus is placed on multicellular co-culture strategies that promote vascular stability and cardiac function. By combining four human cell types—endothelial cells, stromal cells, pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, and primitive macrophages—vascularized cardiac microtissues were generated within fibrin-based matrices. These studies demonstrate a critical role for primitive macrophages in supporting vascular morphogenesis and cardiac performance through direct cell–cell interactions and the secretion of matrix-remodeling, pro-angiogenic, and cardioprotective factors. Finally, the presentation addresses how automation and machine-learning-driven self-driving laboratory approaches can further enhance the throughput, robustness, and reproducibility of complex organ-on-a-chip systems.

Short bio

Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor at the University of Toronto, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering and a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. She is a co-founder of the Center for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT) and a scientific lead of the Human Organ Emulation Self-driving Laboratory of the Acceleration Consortium. She is a Fellow of 10 academies and professional societies including the Royal Society of Canada-Academy of Science, Canadian Academy of Engineering, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIBME) etc. She obtained her B.Eng in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University and Ph.D. from MIT. She was a recipient of the MIT Technology Review Top 35 Under 35, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, NSERC E.W.R Steacie Fellowship, YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, Killam Fellowship, Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal, Humboldt Research Award, NSERC Polanyi Prize, Governor General Innovation Award to name a few. Her research focuses on organ-on-a-chip engineering and development of new biomaterials that promote healing and attenuate scarring. She is internationally acclaimed for spearheading the field of organ-on-a-chip (OoC) engineering. To overcome the limitations of non-expandable human cardiomyocytes and species differences in animal models, her lab leveraged induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to build functional human heart tissue and mature it using long-term electrical stimulation, enabling modeling of patient-specific cardiac disease. She developed new methods to vascularize tissues. She is an Executive Editor for ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, a reviewing editor for eLife and a member of the editorial board of another 8 journals. She served on the Board of Directors for Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, Canadian Biomaterials Society and McMaster University Alumni Association. She organized Keystone, EMBO and ECI conferences and numerous sessions at TERMIS and BMES meetings. She is BME Review Panel Chair for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and member of review panels for CIHR and NIH. She is a co-founder of two companies TARA Biosystems (acquired by Valo Health), that uses human engineered heart tissues for screening of AI designed drugs, and Quthero that advances regenerative peptide materials. Her work has been presented in over 260 publications, garnering over 27,000 citations with an h-index of 83. Her publications appeared in Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Nature Protocols, Nature Communications, PNAS etc.

Location:		Online only (Teams link will be forwarded)
Contact:		Julien Gautrot
Email:		j.gautrot@qmul.ac.uk

Updated by: Julien Gautrot