BME Seminar Series: Dr. Aleksander Skardal, Wake Forest School of Medicine

Aleksander Skardal, PhD
Assistant Professor, Institute for Regenerative
Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, Cancer
Biology, Molecular Medicine and Translational
Science, and the Comprehensive Cancer Center

Wake Forest School of Medicine

 

 

 

Bioengineered 3D tissue and tumor constructs, also often referred to as organoids, provide the potential to sometimes replace, but more likely supplement, traditional 2D cell cultures and animal models both for mechanistic basic science investigation, as well as downstream applications such as drug development and patient-specific diagnostics and precision medicine. This talk will highlight 3 major cancer-focused efforts in my laboratory built on biomaterials, biofabrication, and microfluidic technology expertise: 1) Modeling metastasis between 2 or more bioengineered tissue/tumor sites in a metastasis-on-a-chip microfluidic device. 2) Blood cancers: Leukemia and lymphoma cell homing to particular bone marrow niche constructs and drug screening in patient-derived myeloma organoids. 3) Clinically-driven patient-derived tumor organoids and tumor-on-a-chip devices (including immune-enhanced organoids) to improve chemotherapy and immunotherapy precision medicine optimization.

 

 

Dr. Aleksander Skardal is an Assistant Professor of Regenerative Medicine at the Wake Forest School of Medicine. He also has appointments in the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Cancer Biology, Molecular Medicine and Translational Science, and is a member of the Comprehensive Cancer Center at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He received his BSc at Johns Hopkins University in Biomedical Engineering, his PhD at the University of Utah in Bioengineering, and did postdoctoral work at Wake Forest before becoming faculty. He has published more than 56 peer-reviewed journal articles, books, or book chapters, and is an inventor on over 20 patents or patent applications. He is an inventor on multiple technologies that have become commercially available products, are licensed by industry, or are entering clinical trials. His research in biomaterials, bioprinting, cancer model engineering, wound healing, organ-on-a-chip systems is funded through NIH, Dept. of Defense, private, and institutional grants.