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SUMMARY:Synthetic hydrogels as cell environments
DTSTART:20150223T131500
DTSTAMP:20260406T144346Z
UID:94a682887364c441b39d231cf3001a633b7636bbe8c812c6dbce2b76
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Prof. Matthias Lütolf\, Director of the Interfaculty Institut
 e of Bioengineering\, EPFL\nBio: Professor Matthias Lutolf is Director of 
 the Institute of Bioengineering (IBI) EFPL\, and Head of the Laboratory of
  Stem Cell Bioengineering. He was trained as a Materials Engineer at ETH Z
 urich where he also carried out his Ph.D. studies on the development of a 
 novel class of biomaterials for tissue engineering (awarded with ETH medal
  in 2004). Lutolf carried out postdoctoral studies at the Baxter Laborator
 y in Stem Cell Biology at Stanford University on microenvironmental (‘ni
 che’) regulation of somatic stem cells (2005-2007). He started up his in
 dependent research group at EPFL with a European Young Investigator (EURYI
 ) award. By interfacing advanced biomaterials engineering\, microtechnolog
 y and stem cell biology\, a major goal in his lab is to uncover mechanisms
  of stem cell fate regulation\; knowledge that will contribute to better w
 ays to grow stem cells in culture and use them for various applications.\n
 Hydrogels are crosslinked polymer networks that store large amounts of wat
 er. Major components of tissues in our body are built of dynamic hydrogels
 \, termed extracellular matrix (ECM)\, composed of complex mixtures of pro
 teins and sugars that are secreted by cells. The ECM is specific to a part
 icular cell and tissue type and provides numerous biochemical and biophysi
 cal signals that instruct cells to perform specific functions\, for exampl
 e\, to multiply\, migrate or differentiate. The instructive role of the EC
 M is crucial in building a tissue\, in keeping it functional over long per
 iods\, and in regenerating it after damage.  Inspired by nature\, we have
  been developing fully synthetic and dynamic hydrogels that can mimic some
  of the key functions of natural ECM.  In this talk\, I will highlight re
 cent efforts in my lab to develop hydrogels that emulate the native hydrog
 els that control the unique functions of stem cells in our tissues. I will
  also describe our emerging molecular toolbox to fabricate tissues in vitr
 o based on hydrogel-guided stem cell development.\n• Ranga A\, Gobaa S\,
  Okawa Y\, Mosiewicz KA\, Negro A\, Lutolf MP\, 3D niche microarrays for s
 ystems-level analyses of cell fate\, Nature Communications\, 5 Article num
 ber: 4324 doi:10.1038/ncomms5324 (2014)\n• Gjorevski N\, Ranga A\, Lutol
 f MP\, Bioengineering approaches to guide stem cell-based organogenesis\, 
 Development\, 141 (9)\, 1794-1804 (2014)\n• Mosiewicz KA\, Kolb L\, van 
 der Vlies AJ\, Martino MM\, Lienemann PS\, Hubbell JA\, Ehrbar M\, Lutolf 
 MP\, In situ cell manipulation through enzymatic hydrogel photopatterning\
 , Nature Materials\, 12 (11)\, 1072-1078 (2013)
LOCATION:MXF 1 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MXF%201
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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