Symposium Sessions

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

It is increasingly recognized that conventional and oversimplified cell culture strategies based on the planar, static formats cannot reproduce the function and complexity of biological tissues. Miniaturized biomimetic 3D tissue models fabricated using advanced materials and biomaterials, when interconnected together in a microfluidic circuit, can faithfully recapitulate the structure, biology, physiology, compartmentalization, and interconnectivity of human tissue and organ systems. These systems potentially enable accurate prediction of human responses towards pharmaceutical compounds, and facilitate high-content testing of nanomedicines, chemicals, and biological species. In the past decade, advances in materials science and microfluidics technologies have improved our capacity in the development of tissue models as simple and reproducible platforms that recapitulate tissue-level functions through incorporation of biological materials such as cells, their associated matrices, and microenvironmental cues. The utilization of fluids in micro-sized channels is cost-effective due to reductions in the quantity of cells, animals, and reagents required, making it further scalable. In a related way, rapid advancement in biofabrication technologies have enabled the creation of biomimetic microenvironments to emulate architectural fidelity, apply shear stress, strain, and/or interfaces on different biological materials. The advances in materials will continue to drive the field of in vitro tissue modeling by contributing to improved cell-instructive extracellular matrix cues, while biofabrication will enable improved 3D spatial control and dynamics required for the successful creation of the complex human tissue microenvironments. This symposium will cover interdisciplinary topics spanning from materials science, physics, chemistry, engineering, biological sciences, and medicine with an emphasis on advanced manufacturing technologies for generating microphysiological systems or organ-on-chip platforms, towards applications in both fundamental studies and translational research.

Topics will include:

• Microfabrication technologies for generating tissue models
• Biofabrication for disease modeling
• Understanding material-cell interactions in engineering tissue models
• Multi-organ systems that enable inter-tissue interactions
• Spheroid and organoid 3D tissue models and applications
• 3D bioprinting for microtissue fabrication
• 3D printing for microbioreactor fabrication
• Microfluidics and lab/organ-on-chip technologies for biological screening
• Sensor technologies for monitoring microtissue responses
• Scaling laws that translate the human system into the miniaturized systems through materials designs
• Computational methods for guiding biomanufacturing strategies

• A tutorial complementing this symposium is tentatively planned.

Invited Speakers:

• Dongeun (Dan) Huh (University of Pennsylvania, USA)
• Jianping Fu (University of Michigan, USA)
• Jinah Jang (Pohang University of Science and Technology, Republic of Korea)
• Roger Kamm (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)
• David Kaplan (Tufts University, USA)
• Monica Laronda (Northwestern University, USA)
• Luke Lee (National University of Singapore, Singapore)
• Jos Malda (Utrecht University, Netherlands)
• Roos Masereeuw (Utrecht University, Netherlands)
• Rachelle Prantil-Baun (Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, USA)
• Milica Radisic (University of Toronto, Canada)
• Grissel Trujillo-de Santiago (Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico)
• Joyce Wong (Boston University, USA)
• Tim Woodfield (University of Otago, New Zealand)
• Y. Shrike Zhang (Harvard Medical School, USA)
• Yuanjin Zhao (Southeast University, China)

Symposium Organizers