Highly parallel tissue grafting of engineered liver micro-tissues enables high-throughput in vivo biomaterial screening

Saturday, October 14, 2023

8:30 AM - 8:45 AM PDT

Location: 335 (Center, Level 3)

Presenting Author(s)

Susana P. Simmonds Bohorquez (she/her/hers)

Graduate Student
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, United States

Co-Author(s)

CO

Colleen E. O’Connor, PhD (she/her/hers)

Upside Foods, United States
Fan Zhang, PhD (she/her/hers)

Postdoctoral Scholar
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington, United States
CF

Chelsea L. Fortin, PhD (she/her/hers)

Shape Therapeutics, United States
FJ

Fredrik Johansson

University of Washington, United States

Primary Investigator(s)

Kelly Stevens

Associate Professor Bioengineering
University of Washington, United States

The Stevens lab has developed a system, called “highly parallel tissue grafting” (HPTG), that enables high-throughput in vivo screening of cell-biomaterial microenvironments by leveraging an implantable, 3D-printed hydrogel microarray. Here, we probe formulations of cellular components, namely human hepatocytes and stromal cells, in biomaterials of varying mechanical stiffnesses with dozens of individually-addressable conditions simultaneously within a single animal. We sought to validate HPTG as a tool to study the effect of biomaterial stiffness and mouse host liver injury stimulus on the viability and growth of engineered liver micro-tissues, a potential transplantable material- and cell-based therapeutic system for treating chronic liver disease.