Diseases... in a dish!

The contraction and expansion of blood vessels (“contractility”) controls how blood is transported throughout the body. Contractility also underpins the development and treatment of cardiovascular disease, but methods to study contractility in the laboratory are lacking. In this talk, Adam will discuss a new bioengineering technique he has developed which creates miniature, three-dimensional “blood vessels” in order to investigate contractility. This highlights the power of in vitro models and has the potential to transform our scientific approach to cardiovascular disease and beyond.

The human brain is arguably our most complex organ. However, we know very little about how our brain develops, how it functions - and how diseases which affect our brain emerge.

Using human pluripotent stem cells, we are nowadays able to grow small tissues of the human brain in the laboratory, which are called brain organoids. With this fascinating model system, we are able to study some of the mysteries of our brain. In this talk, I will demonstrate how we use brain organoids to study the dopaminergic system, and what implications this technology might have on society in the future.

The talk will briefly outline the significance of urinary tract infections (UTI) and how organ-on-a-chip technology can be used to uncover the clever tricks bacteria use to navigate their host (humans!). Bacteria are extremely sensitive to their environment and will adapt to survive against current antibiotic treatments. The use of organoids (mini lab-grown organs) which mimic organ structure and function can help provide a better understanding of infection development. By connecting organoids in a microfluidic chip, we aim to identify and exploit the mechanisms that bacteria deploy to ascend from the gut, to the bladder and even the kidney. This may provide insight into novel therapeutic strategies to combat treatment-resistant infections!