Events Calendar

Seminars in Biomedical Engineering

Speaker: Jungwoo Lee, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School

Talk Title: Enabling 3D Microenvironments for Bone Marrow Bioengineering

Abstract: Bone marrow, a sponge-like gelatinous and vascular tissue located at the inside of bone matrix is a vital part of human body as a major reservoir of adult stem cells, an exclusive site for hematopoiesis, and a key regulator of body homeostasis via continuous cellular trafficking. Bone marrow is also deeply involved in metastasis of many prominent tumors e.g. breast and prostate tumors as a direct metastatic target for disseminated circulating tumor cells and/or a potent instigator of their metastatic spread to other peripheral tissue sites. Therefore, in depth understanding of bone marrow biology is critical to advance many fields of modern medicine. However, probing the bone marrow microenvironments has been challenging because of its anatomical inaccessibility, tissue complexity and lack of relevant preclinical models. In this talk, I will introduce bioengineering strategies to develop functional and standardized bone marrow models based on 3D hydrogel scaffolds that closely emulate physical and anatomical features of the bone marrow in a controlled and reproducible manner. Specifically I will discuss development of in vitro and in vivo human bone marrow tissue analogues combining the 3D hydrogel scaffolds with primary human bone marrow stromal cells that recapitulate essential bone marrow functions with high analytical power. In the last part of my talk, I will introduce an exciting application of our in vivo bone marrow model for studying human prostate tumor metastasis with several enabling features. Biomimetic design of 3D hydrogel scaffolds coupled with a powerful set of material, microfluidic, imaging and cellular engineering tools offer unique opportunity to build functional and analytical preclinical bone marrow models for studying many complex, dynamic physiological and pathological processes in the bone marrow.


Biography: Jungwoo Lee received his Ph.D in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2009 under Prof. Nicholas Kotov. He then joined the Center for Engineering in Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital as a postdoctoral research fellow. Currently Jungwoo is a NIH Pathway to Independence (K99/R00) fellow from National Cancer Institute. He has authored and co-authored over 24 papers in PNAS, Nature Materials, Biomaterials, Small and other major research journals, and has won several honors and awards including Postdoctoral Fellowship from Shriners Hospital for Children, Poster Distinction Award from Annual MGH Research Symposium, Selection of "Cell Biology 2010" from ASCB Annual meeting, 1st Place in Entrepreneurial Challenging from MRS meeting, Distinguished Achievement Award from Univ. Michigan, and Horace H. Rackham Predoctoral Fellowship. His research has focused on developing preclinical in vitro and in vivo human bone marrow models that can be used in a diverse range of bone marrow related fundamental and translational studies.

Host: David D'Argenio

Location: Olin Hall of Engineering (OHE) - 100C

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Mischalgrace Diasanta