SBME Seminar: Simulation of Kidney Cystogenesis – Dr. James Glazier
Dr. Glazier will illustrate their use in a variety of contexts new and old focusing on epithelial organization, from the simulation of somite formation during development to epithelial homeostasis in the skin and the eye, kidney cystogenesis and developmental toxicology. Dr. Glazier will also discuss the kinds of questions we can answer with Virtual Tissue models to gain scientific insight and for biomedical engineering applications.
Events
Calendar
SBME Special Seminar: Bioengineering Lungs for Pulmonary Therapies and Organ Repair
December 4 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm PST
SBME Special Seminar: Bioengineering Lungs for Pulmonary Therapies and Organ Repair
Seminar Abstract:
Respiratory diseases represent a vast healthcare burden. Alone, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) stands as the third leading cause of death worldwide. Beyond dire prognoses and no curative treatments, lung transplantation options are often limited by donor organs, with patients waiting weeks to years. Unlike other disease areas, pulmonary medicine has witnessed substantially fewer drugs approved in the last half century, underscoring less drug candidates and higher failure rates. Motivated by these unmet clinical needs, I will present in this talk the three leading research pillars that have shaped my scientific career in the past two decades: (i) devising novel pulmonary drug delivery modalities, (ii) engineering 3D lung scaffolds and (iii) recreating functional human-like airway tissues. First, I will exemplify novel engineering modalities that go beyond the current paradigms of respiratory therapies, including point-airway targeting of lung chemotherapies or alternatively delivering high-dose therapeutic regimens across the lungs. Next, I will show ongoing efforts using fabrication and 3D printing to engineer preclinical pulmonary models that cross over the multitude of sizes and length scales of the respiratory organ. I will discuss how the integration of 3D lung scaffolds with various lung cell types can recapitulate functional human-relevant tissue barriers for patient-specific disease onset and prevention endpoints. Lastly, I will share a long-term vision to engineer stem cell-based bioprinted lung scaffolds that can ultimately bridge the needs for organ transplants. In advancing towards this hopeful goal, I will map important milestones envisioned, including strategies for lung repair that combine lung stem cells and advanced drug delivery modalities.
Dr. Josué Sznitman’s Biography:
Josué is the Dean of the Faculty of Biomedical Engineering at the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, where he has been a Full Professor since 2023. Prior to joining the Technion in 2010, Josué earned a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from MIT (2002) and a Dr. Sc. from ETH Zurich (2008). Thereafter, he spent time as a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and later moved to Princeton University as a Lecturer and Research Associate appointed by the Princeton Council of Science & Technology. With over 100 published journal articles and several patents to his record, Josué’s research stronghold lies in the field of pulmonary bioengineering for translational endpoints in respiratory medicine, including drug delivery to the lungs. Among his accolades, Sznitman was awarded the Young Investigator Award (2015) by the International Society of Aerosols in Medicine for a researcher under the age of 40 and the 2018 Emerging Scientist Award in Drug Delivery to the Lungs (The Aerosol Society, UK). Since 2019, he serves as an Associate Editor for the journal Clinical Biomechanics and was previously an Associate Editor for the Journal of Biomechanics. He sits on the Editorial Board of Biomicrofluidics and the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and is a member of the World Council of Biomechanics.
Location:
DMCBH 101 LT