Awarded in 2021
Home Department: Bioengineering
Faculty Advisors: Mark Skylar-Scott (Bioengineering) and Joseph Woo (Cardiothoracic Surgery)

Research Title: Organ-Scale Biofabrication: 3D Bioprinting of Engineered Pluripotent Stem Cells to Form a Mature Human Ventricle

Research Description: 3D bioprinting promises a future of organs-on-demand. However, organ engineering is stalled due to the challenge of scalable cell generation. Jonathan aims to enable the affordable culture of trillions of cells necessary for organ biofabrication. Human induced pluripotent stem cells will be engineered to eliminate reliance on expensive culture medium supplements and support efficient differentiation into cardiomyocytes, endothelial cells, and fibroblasts. To demonstrate organ-scale biofabrication, a vascularized ventricle will then be bioprinted and housed in a cardiac bioreactor for maturation. This translational and interdisciplinary work requires clinically-informed multiscale engineering expertise and will have major impacts on treating cardiovascular diseases.