John Wikswo,
Gordon A. Cain University Professor, A.B. Learned Professor of Living State Physics; Founding Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems,
Vanderbilt University
John Wikswo is the Gordon A. Cain University Professor at Vanderbilt University and is the founding Director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education. Trained as a physicist, he received his B.A. degree from the University of Virginia, and his PhD. from Stanford University. He has been on the Vanderbilt faculty since 1977. His research has included superconducting magnetometry, the measurement and modeling of cardiac, neural and gastric electric and magnetic fields, and non-destructive testing of aging aircraft. His group’s current work on organ-on-chips focuses on the development of intelligent well plates that serve as perfusion controllers, microclinical analyzers, and microformulators; developing a blood-brain-barrier and a cardiac tissue construct on a chip; and integrating multiple organs to create a milli-homunculus from coupled organs on chips. As a tenured member of the Departments of Biomedical Engineering, Molecular Physiology & Biophysics, and Physics & Astronomy, he is guiding the development of microfabricated devices, optical instruments, and software for studying how living cells interact with each other and their environment and respond to drugs, chemical/biological agents, and other toxins, thereby providing insights into systems biology, physiology, medicine, and toxicology. He has over 250 publications, is a fellow of seven professional societies, and has received 39 patents.
Fitting iPSCs, 3D Cell Culture, Tissue Chips and Microphysiological Systems into the Grand Scheme of Biology, Medicine, Pharmacology, and Toxicology
Monday, 10 July 2017 at 09:30
Add to Calendar ▼2017-07-10 09:30:002017-07-10 10:30:00Europe/LondonFitting iPSCs, 3D Cell Culture, Tissue Chips and Microphysiological Systems into the Grand Scheme of Biology, Medicine, Pharmacology, and ToxicologyStem Cells for Drug Discovery and Toxicity Screening 2017 in Boston, USABoston, USASELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
As the engineering supporting body-on-chip (BoC) studies advances and
begins to penetrate both science and industry, we need to explore three
separate multidimensional spaces – one that spans BoC components, one
that covers the analytical techniques to characterize BoC performance
and drug response, and a third that spans the fields of application.
The component technologies being brought together include induced
pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), 3D cell culture (which is beginning to
involve vascularization), tissue-chip bioreactors that enable the
recreation to tissue-like microenvironments, and the hardware required
to operate coupled microphysiological systems in a manner that
recapitulates human physiology and its response to drugs and toxins. The
second, analytical space is only now coming to the fore. To date, most
tissue-chip studies have reported morphological features, the expression
of small sets of genes, or the secretion of a few, organ-specific
compounds. A much more comprehensive battery of techniques is already in
regular use in the pharmaceutical industry, including genomics,
proteomics, and transcriptomics. Metabolomics is rapidly moving into
prominence as the instrumentation improves and the databases expand.
What is needed, though, are comprehensive comparisons between in vitro
and in vivo studies, as has been recently demonstrated with a weighted
gene coexpression network analysis that compare rat liver in vivo with
both mouse liver in vitro and rat primary hepatocytes growing in a dish,
which showed that a mouse liver was a better model of the rat liver
than the primary rat hepatocytes in a dish, which more closely resembled
a rat liver exposed to a significant toxic load. The BoC community
needs to compare, for example, a mouse with a mouse-on-a-chip to confirm
that the appropriate physiology is being recapitulated. The final space
spans biology, medicine, pharmacology, physiology and toxicology. BoCs
offer, for the first time, the ability to recreate in vitro and in
parallel, with an ever-dropping cost, the effects of organ-organ
interactions. Nowhere will this be more important than in studies of
absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion - toxicity
(ADME-Tox), where one may need skin, lung, or gut to absorb a drug or
toxin, liver and kidney to metabolize and excrete drug metabolites and
toxins, adipose and muscle tissue to store metabolites and toxins, and a
means to characterize in depth the underlying processes and how they
affect the chosen target organs. BoCs will thereby contribute not only
to toxicology, but our fundamental understanding of cellular biology and
systems physiology, thereby advancing both pharmacology and medicine.
Given that we will never create a perfect microHuman BoC, we can use
these three spaces to guide the compromises we make as we create useful
models, even toy models, of human physiology.
Add to Calendar ▼2017-07-10 00:00:002017-07-11 00:00:00Europe/LondonStem Cells for Drug Discovery and Toxicity Screening 2017Stem Cells for Drug Discovery and Toxicity Screening 2017 in Boston, USABoston, USASELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
Add to Calendar ▼2017-07-10 09:30:002017-07-10 10:30:00Europe/LondonFitting iPSCs, 3D Cell Culture, Tissue Chips and Microphysiological Systems into the Grand Scheme of Biology, Medicine, Pharmacology, and ToxicologyStem Cells for Drug Discovery and Toxicity Screening 2017 in Boston, USABoston, USASELECTBIOenquiries@selectbiosciences.com
