Ashutosh Agarwal
Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Associate Director, DJT Macdonald Foundation Biomedical Nanotechnology Institute
College of Engineering
a.agarwal2@miami.edu
Dr. Agarwal's expertise lies in the engineering of physiologically relevant fluidic platforms that service Organs on Chips, Organoids on Chips, Live Organ Slices, and recently, Organ perfusion, preservation and transportation for whole human eyes. Organs on Chips are designed as accurate models of the structure and function of human organs. These collaborative ventures seek to replace the current paradigm of high quantity, low quality data with limited applicability to the human patient with mid-quantity, high quality data that will eventually be patient specific. However, multiple daunting, yet scientifically fertile roadblocks will need to be addressed along the way: identifying a robust source of primary or stem cell derived human tissues; recapitulation of organ-specific microenvironments and architectures; development of a universal culture media for multiple cell/tissue types; agile deployment of multiple chips through a network of pumps, valves, switches, collection ports, and sampling ports; integration of on-chip sensors and analytics for real-time evaluation of function; extrapolation of in vitro results to in vivo outcomes; allometric scaling laws of organ chips with respect to each other; and finally, translating these devices in a scalable manner into the laboratories of basic scientists and pharmaceutical companies. His team hopes to contribute towards each of these thrust areas.
Keywords: biotechnology, organs models, eyes, in vitro, organs on chips
