Dr. Milica Radisic

Dr. Hannah Song

Post Doc

In adults, the beating heart cells (cardiomyocytes) cannot divide to regenerate the injured or diseased heart; instead they are replaced by a non-beating scar. In several clinical studies, injected cells from the bone marrow or skeletal muscle into the heart have resulted in, at best, modest functional improvement. In all cases, transplanted cell survival has been poor indicating that any beneficial effect is likely to be transient and mediated via mechanisms associated with secreted factors. A major limitation in the development of cellular therapies to the heart is cell survival and integration post transplantation. Therefore, we have developed a model system capable of screening for cell survival and integration into engineered heart tissue (EHT). Our in vitro model system will enable the rapid and efficient screening of candidate cell types and survival / integration factors for pre-clinical studies. Currently, initial studies focus on the survival and integration of embryonic stem cell (ESC)-derived cardiac cells and progenitors into EHT. Our ESC-derived cardiac cells are fluorescently labeled in order to quantitatively track the injected cells into EHT. Once the system is developed, we are planning to pursue screening for factors (small molecules, cytokines) that increase cell survival and integration into cardiac tissue in a high through-put manner.

Katherine Chiang

Ph.D. Candidate

The main goal of Katherine’s project is to engineer a blood vessel by site specific differentiation of Flk1+ (or KDR+) vascular progenitors on substrates with immobilized VEGF or PDGF-BB.

Loraine Chiu, M.A.Sc.

Ph.D. Candidate

Loraine Chiu received her Bachelor's degree with honours from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto in June 2007. As a recipient of NSERC CGS-M, she is currently working under the supervision of Dr. Milica Radisic to investigate the effects of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and angiopoietin-1 (Ang-1) on angiogenesis. This involves immobilizing the growth factors on collagen sponges to provide cultivation conditions for endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes.

Loraine previously received NSERC URSA, which provided an opportunity for her to work with Dr. Radisic during Summer 2006. In the following school year, she continued to work in the LFTE group to complete her fourth year undergraduate thesis project on the combined effect of non-myocytes co-culturing and electrical stimulation for cardiac tissue engineering on poly(ethylene glycol)-diacrylate discs. Her other previous research work, also supported by NSERC URSAs, include a scripted activity study on the impact of protective advice on personal exposure to particulate matter and VOCs (supervised by Professor Greg Evans, Summer 2004), and a study on the adsorption of aqueous mercury on activated carbon (supervised by Professor Charles Q. Jia, Summer 2005)

Rohin Iyer

Ph.D. Candidate

Rohin Iyer is currently pursuing his Ph.D. at the Laboratory for Functional Tissue Engineering. His research focus is on cell tri-culture of cardiomyocytes with non-myocytes (endothelial cells and fibroblasts) to improve tissue function and vascularization.  In order to optimize these tri-culture conditions in a cost-effective manner and facilitate rapid screening, his initial studies were carried out in three-dimensional microchannels to guide the formation of cardiac organoids with physiologically relevant dimensions. Currently, he is working on scale-up studies to engineer a vascularized cardiac patch from multiple cell populations of clinical thickness (several milimeters).

Rohin is the recipient of both an Ontario Graduate Scholarship in Science in Technology (OGSST) as well as an Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS). In 2008, he was also awarded a prestigious National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) PGS D Award tenable for 3 years. More recently, Rohin was awarded the Ontario Centres of Excellence "International Scholarship." This scholarship enables him to travel to and conduct research at the Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering at Columbia University's Department of Biomedical Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic, a world-renowned researcher in the area of Tissue Engineering. As a visiting researcher at Columbia University, Rohin is following up on his scale-up work to carry out tri-culture experiments in vitro in the presence of electrical stimulation. This provides additional electrophysiological and mechanical cues to his engineered tissues thrrough excitation-contraction coupling, which mimics the rhyhtmic contractions of the native myocardium. These in vitro studies, in turn, are aimed at selecting favourable conditions for subsequent in vivo studies, which involve implanting the engineered constructs into infarcted rat hearts. If successful, this work would serve as a proof of concept for in vivo studies in humans, and could provide insight into novel therapies for heart disease in patients with end-stage heart failure.

He can be contacted at rohinDOTiyerATutorontoDOTca.

Lewis Reis

Ph.D. Candidate

The main goal of Lewis’s project is to develop an injectable hydrogel for treatment of myocardial infarction that will promote the survival and integration of injected cells.

M.Y. Anne Hsieh, M.A.Sc.

Ph.D. Candidate

Anne is currently pursuing Ph.D. in the joint Chemical and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto after receiving her undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering with minor in Biology and options in Management Science and Statistics, from the University of Waterloo. Her research focuses on designing microfluidic devices for cell selection.
Anne has received several scholarships including URSA, CGS-M, and CGS-D from NSERC, U of T fellowships from Chemical Engineering, and Mary H. Beatty. As a teaching assistant, she has supervised engineering courses including Biotransport Phenomena (CHE393) and Engineering Biology (CHE353) in 2008 and 2009, and as course instructor for DEEP Summer Academy (Genetic Engineering).

She can be contacted at anneDOThsiehATutorontoDOTca.

Devang Odedra

M.A.Sc. Candidate

Devang holds a BASc. from the Engineering Science program at University of Toronto, specializing in the Biomedical Option. In his Master's project, he is investigating the effects of immobilized protein gradients on endothelial cell survival and migration.

Nimalan Thravandiran

M.A.Sc. Candidate

The main goal of Nimalan’s project is to develop an array of micro-cardiac tissues suitable for drug testing.

Katarina Janic

B.Sc. Candidate

The main goal of Katarina’s project is to develop an oriented 3D cultures of cardiomyocytes using hydrogels and electrical stimulation.

Larry Meng

Lab Technician

Larry works as technician in an active and productive laboratory. He maintains lab and performs the neonatal rat heart isolation and work on the engineered heart tissue by cultivating human embryonic stem cells (hESC).
Before joining the lab, he worked at different university-based research institutions and was involved in different research projects such as human heart failure, hypertension, hepatitis C virus in Germany and Canada, respectively.

Gordana Jovanovic-Bulajic

2009, Lab Technician

Fiona Rask
M.A.Sc.
2007-2009

Fiona Rask received her Bachelor's degree with honours from the Department of Chemical Engineering at Queen's University in June 2007.  As a recipient of an NSERC CGS-M, she is currently pursuing a Master's degree in the Laboratory for Functional Tissue Engineering under the supervision of Dr. Milica Radisic.  Her thesis is investigating an injectible hydrogel for cardiomyocyte delivery into the heart.

Fiona has previously received two NSERC URSAs, which were used to work at Queen's University, one year in a physical chemistry lab and the following year at the Human Mobility Research Centre in a cartilage tissue engineering lab. In the proceeding school year, she continued her work in cartilage tissue engineering to complete her fourth year undergraduate thesis, studying the effects of antioxidants on the growth of cartilage tissue.

Fahad Chowdhury
M.A.Sc.
2006-2009

Fahad received his B.A.Sc (Hon) from the Engineering Science Program  (Biomedical Option) at the University of Toronto, and was a graduate  of the Class of OT6. His undergraduate thesis was titled "Engineering surfaces to enable the patterning of stem cells", where he worked under the supervision of Dr. Zandstra at the Stem Cell Bioengineering Lab. His present M.A.Sc. project will involve the patterned localization of the growth factor VEGF, to enable site-specific differentiation of mesodermal progenitor cells to endothelial cells or smooth muscle cells. Such a technology will allow for the development of cardiac patches flanked by vessels made of endothelial and smooth muscle cells. Outside of the lab, Fahad is an executive member of the Biomedical Engineering Student Association (BESA) and a member of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Toronto Chapter.

Jana Dengler
M.A.Sc.
2006-2009

Jana Dengler graduated with a Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from Queen’s University in 2006. She is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree in the Laboratory for Functional Tissue Engineering. Her research is focused on developing an in vitro transplantation model to study stem cell integration and differentiation upon injection into myocardium.

Melissa Brown
M.A.Sc.
2006-2009

Melissa obtained her B.A.Sc from the Biomedical Engineering option of Engineering Science at the University of Toronto (Class of 0T6). Her 4th year thesis research was done on Perfusion Bioreactor Systems for Cardiac Tissue Engineering, under the supervision of Dr. Milica Radisic. This research seeks to improve the functionality and thickness of polymer-based cardiac patches by varying bioreactor conditions. She is currently working in the Radisic lab as a summer student, continuing her thesis research.

Heidi Au
M.A.Sc.
2006-2008

Heidi Au received a Bachelor's degree with honours from the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Toronto in June 2006. Over the summer of 2006, she investigated the effect of contact guidance and electrical stimulation on myocardium cells. As a recipient of a U of T Open Fellowship, she is currently pursuing a Master's degree and her project involves the characterization of a cardiac progenitor population within the neonatal rat heart.

Heidi's previous research experiences include stem cell work as well as wastewater treatment. Her undergraduate thesis, which focused on the study of genes involved in stem cell self-renewal and differentiation, was supervised by Dr. William L. Stanford. Heidi is also an active member of student clubs such as the Chemical Engineering Graduate Student Association (CEGSA) and Leaders of Tomorrow program at the University of Toronto. In fall 2005, she was part of the Student Program Organizing Committee for the Canadian Society for Chemical Engineering (CSChE) conference. She is also a student member of Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) and attended the annual meeting of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) as a representative of the student chapter at the University of Toronto in 2004.

Bashir Bhana
B.A.Sc.
2007-2008

Bashir Bhana is a fourth year student in Chemical Engineering.  He is currently working with Rohin Iyer to characterize the effect of substrate stiffness on the phenotype of cardiomyocytes.  His previous research experience includes investigating novel techniques for the quantification of catecholamine content   (for example, adrenaline) in the blood of newborn infants under Dr. Azar Azad and Dr. Kenneth Pritzker at Mount Sinai Hospital.  Bashir is also the President of the Club for Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto.

Zane Chu
B.A.Sc.
2007-2008

Zane Chu is a fourth year student in the Biomedical Engineering option of Engineering Science. He is currently working with Heidi Au to characterize a cardiac progenitor cell population in neonatal rat hearts. Specifically, his fourth year thesis is a study of the transcriptional profile of these cardiac progenitors over time using RT-PCR. His previous research experience includes work in fast PCR, microarray genotyping and single nucleotide polymorphisms at the UBC iCAPTURE Centre under Dr. Scott Tebbutt.