Cell and tissue engineering

John Slater joined UD as an assistant professor of biomedical engineering in fall 2013. His lab focuses on implementing biomimetic materials for cell and tissue engineering applications. For cell engineering applications, Slater investigates how biophysical and biochemical cues coming from a cell’s microenvironment can be tuned to regulate a cell’s fate. This approach is being used to produce more uniform cell populations of a chosen functional type in order to prime cells for cell-based therapeutic applications. For tissue engineering applications, Slater focuses on developing and implementing 3D microfluidic systems that are embedded in synthetic tissue. His lab is developing techniques that use images of blood vessels in native tissue as templates for patterning the microfluidic systems using a laser. This technology is being used to fabricate micro-organs for drug screening applications.