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BE Seminar: “Bioengineered Platforms for Mechanistic Understandings and Therapeutic Interventions” (Shyni Varghese, Duke University)
May 4 at 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM
This talk will be held in person in Glandt Forum; snacks will be served.
Regenerative medicine is an interdisciplinary field that has significant promise for treating compromised tissues and organs. In our laboratory, we use a number of tools including biomaterials, organoids, quantitative modeling, and animal models to gain new fundamental understandings and identify therapeutic targets. In this talk, I will show several examples from our lab illustrating the use of such platforms to address key problems in tissue repair with aging and disease progression. First, I will discuss our efforts in creating synthetic analogs of the extracellular matrix to direct stem cell commitment in vitro and in vivo with a focus on bone tissue repair and employing such platforms to understand molecular mechanisms underlying bone homeostasis and identifying new therapeutic targets (Shih et al., PNAS 111: 990, 2014; 114: 5419 2017; Kang H et al., Biomacromolecules 16: 1050, 2015; Shih et al., Sci. Adv. 5: eaax1387, 2019). Next, I will discuss how these understandings can be leveraged to develop therapeutic interventions to promote tissue repair and mitigate pain (Zeng et al., Adv. Mater. 32, 2020). Finally, I will end the talk by discussing our ongoing efforts in studying the effect of aging on neuroinflammation.
Shyni Varghese, Ph.D.
Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and Orthopaedics, Duke University
Shyni Varghese, Ph.D., is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science, and Orthopaedics Surgery at Duke University. She is the inaugural MEDx Investigator at Duke University. Prior to moving to Duke, she was a Professor of Bioengineering at University of California, San Diego. Dr. Varghese’s research covers a broad range of topics including stem cells, biomaterials, tissue chips, and regenerative medicine. Her research activities have resulted in over 120 publications and over a dozen patent disclosures. Examples of ongoing research activities in her laboratory involve developing technologies to improve cell-based therapies, activating endogenous stem cells to combat age associated changes, and organ-on-a-chip technologies. She is a fellow of AIMBE and Royal Society of Chemistry. She is currently serving as an Associate Editor of Biomaterials Science (an RSC journal).