Tissue Engineered Age-Mimetic Models for Next-Generation Vesicle-Based Therapies
Abstract: Aging is a major risk factor for a variety of diseases, with projections indicating that by 2030 more than 15% of the population will be over the age of sixty underscoring its importance. Despite all this, the mechanisms by which aging affects disease progression, diagnostics, and therapeutic efficacy remain poorly understood, with a large gap in clinical translatability. Tissue engineered age-mimetic models offer a powerful platform to bridge this gap, enabling a controllable system for recapitulating the aged environment and assessing therapeutic efficacy, and incorporating factors such as the extracellular matrix and cell signaling through the use of extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs have recently emerged as key regulators in the microenvironment that influence disease progression and therapeutic efficacy. In this talk, I will discuss our unique approach to using the age-mimetic tissue-engineered models to study novel vesicle therapies.
Biography: Pinar Zorlutuna is the Roth-Gibson Professor of Bioengineering in Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering (AME) Department, Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department, and in Bioengineering Graduate Program at the University of Notre Dame. Her research explores designing biomimetic environments for understanding and controlling cell behavior, and cell-cell and cell-environment interactions using tissue engineering and micro- and nanofabrication approaches. She received various awards including NSF CAREER Award and PECASE, and she is a National Academy of Sciences Kavli Fellow.