Milica Radisic, PhD

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Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor at the University of Toronto, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering and a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. She is a co-founder of the Center for Research and Applications in Fluidic Technologies (CRAFT) and a scientific lead of the Human Organ Emulation Self-driving Laboratory of the Acceleration Consortium. She is a Fellow of 10 academies and professional societies including the Royal Society of Canada-Academy of Science, Canadian Academy of Engineering, Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Institute for Medical & Biological Engineering (AIBME) etc. She obtained her B.Eng in Chemical Engineering from McMaster University and Ph.D. from MIT. She was a recipient of the MIT Technology Review Top 35 Under 35, Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, NSERC E.W.R Steacie Fellowship, YWCA Woman of Distinction Award, Killam Fellowship, Acta Biomaterialia Silver Medal, Humboldt Research Award, NSERC Polanyi Prize, Governor General Innovation Award to name a few. Her research focuses on organ-on-a-chip engineering and development of new biomaterials that promote healing and attenuate scarring. She is internationally acclaimed for spearheading the field of organ-on-a-chip (OoC) engineering.  To overcome the limitations of non-expandable human cardiomyocytes and species differences in animal models, her lab leveraged induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to build functional human heart tissue and mature it using long-term electrical stimulation, enabling modeling of patient-specific cardiac disease. She developed new methods to vascularize tissues. She is an Executive Editor for ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, a reviewing editor for eLife and a member of the editorial board of another 8 journals. She served on the Board of Directors for Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, Canadian Biomaterials Society and McMaster University Alumni Association. She organized Keystone, EMBO and ECI conferences and numerous sessions at TERMIS and BMES meetings.  She is BME Review Panel Chair for the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and member of review panels for CIHR and NIH. She is a co-founder of two companies TARA Biosystems (acquired by Valo Health), that uses human engineered heart tissues for screening of AI designed drugs, and Quthero that advances regenerative peptide materials. Her work has been presented in over 260 publications, garnering over 27,000 citations with an h-index of 83. Her publications appeared in Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Materials, Nature Methods, Nature Protocols, Nature Communications, PNAS etc.

My research program consists of several different projects that all fall under umbrella of cardiac tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.

We are focused on pursuing molecular mechanisms governing the formation of contractile cardiac tissue in vitro as well as on practical strategies for treatment of myocardial infarction and heart failure through development of new biomaterials. We pursue the research programs alone (e.g., advanced bioreactors and cell tri-culture) or in collaboration with other PIs (e.g., microfluidic separation of heart cells).

Tissue Engineering of Cardiac Patches
The key projects in this area are focused on: 1) designing advanced bioreactors for cardiac tissue engineering capable of integrating mechanical and electrical stimuli with perfusion; 2) developing strategies to engineer vascularized myocardium based on the tri-culture of key heart cell types; and 3) using the engineered cardiac tissue as a model system for cardiac cell therapy or drug testing.

Injectable Biomaterials
Cell injection into the infracted myocardium can result in functional improvements, but the utility of this procedure in clinical settings is hampered by the massive death and washout of the injected cells (~90%). We are working on the development of injectable hydrogel that will promote survival and localization of the cardiomyocytes injected into the infracted myocardium. The hydrogels are functionalized with specific peptides capable of promoting the survival of cardiomyocytes.

Microfluidic Cell Separation
The existence of resident cardiac progenitor cells was recently reported by several research groups. The main goal of this project is to develop size and adhesion based microfluidic cell separation methods capable of fractionating cells from small samples such as human biopsies. The system would enable fractionation of endothelial cells, cardiomyocytes, fibroblasts, smooth muscle cells and resident progenitors without the need for labeling.

Microfabricated Systems for Cell Culture
In vivo multiple physical and biochemical stimuli act in concert to determine cell fate and phenotype. In order to engineer functional cardiac patches and develop advanced bioreactors, we need to understand interactive effects of multiple physical stimuli. We are currently developing microfabricated cell culture systems with built-in electrodes and precisely defined groove and ridge heights for simultaneous application of field stimulation and contact guidance cues.

For a list of Dr. Radisic’s publications, please visit ORCIDPubMed or Scopus.