Guest Seminar - Towards Translational Organoid Technology
Successful clinical translation of organoid technology requires insights that extend beyond biology and biochemistry, notably from the fields of mechanical and computational biology. Droplet-microfluidics based engineering strategies offer solutions for improved biochemical and biomechanical regulations on organoid formulation, manipulation, prolonged culture and responsiveness toward external stimuli. Computational biology offers insight to improve organoid feasibility and evaluation. Eventually, toward translational purposes, the organoid engineering system enables standardization, reproducibility, automation and broadened spectrum in personalized drug screening, drug efficacy evaluation, and regenerative therapy of injured organs.
Shaohua Ma is a tenure-track associate professor of Tsinghua University and currently core-PI at Tsinghua Shenzhen Inter- national Graduate School (SIGS) and Tsinghua-Berkeley Shen- zhen Institute (TBSI). He obtained a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Sun Yat-sen University in 2009 and a Ph.D. de- gree from Cambridge University (supervisor: Wilhelm Huck) in 2013. After nearly four years of postdoctoral research at Oxford (supervisor: Hagan Bayley), he joined TBSI in Sept 2017. His research focuses on organoid engineering, stem cell engineering, microfluidics-based biofabrication, and computational biomedicine.