MCELS: Advances in Basic Research and Translational Opportunities
March 26-28, 2025 | OMNI Hilton Head Resort
One of the grand challenges facing our scientific community is to develop the capability to design, engineer and produce complex, multi-cellular engineered living systems (M-CELS).
These systems might arise from guided differentiation of a cluster of pluripotent stem cells, drawing upon the capabilities to apply chemical, physical, or electrical cues to direct co-differentiation, as well as the intrinsic, natural capabilities of cell populations to produce functional interactions through emergence. Or they can be engineered, by first producing a high-level conceptual design, leading to the specification of components consisting of cell clusters, each comprised of phenotypically distinct cell types. This symposium will bring together experts from a variety of domains, including developmental biology, microphysiological systems, synthetic biology, tissue engineering, biobots, and computational modeling. The MCEL series of meetings has evolved into a hallmark global event that delves into the latest advancements and applications in multi-cellular biological systems and related fields.
CONTACT:
Darlene Ray
MCELS2025@mit.edu
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE:
Jonathan Babb (MIT)
Mo Ebrahimkhani (University of Pittsburgh)
Roger Kamm (MIT)
Melissa Kemp (Georgia Institute of Technology)
Jennifer Lewis (Harvard University)
Milica Radisic (University of Toronto)
Rashmi Mohanty (MIT)
Nuria Montserrat (IBEC)
Taher Saif (UIUC)
Ron Weiss (MIT)
AGENDA
Wednesday, March 26th
Room Palmetto Ballroom
Session |
Speaker |
Talk Title |
|
| 9:00 – 9:45 | Keynote | Mark Skyler-Scott | |
| Session 1 | Advanced technologies for engineering multicellular living systems | ||
| 9:45 – 10:15 | Speaker 1 | Thomas Hartung | AI + brain organoids = Organoid Intelligence (OI) (ABSTRACT) |
| 10:15 – 10:45 | Speaker 2 | Zev Gartner | Directing the self-organization of more complex and reproducible 3D tissue models (ABSTRACT) |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee break | ||
| Session 2 | From organoids to organs | ||
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Speaker 1 | Takanori Takebe | Organoid-guided Precision Hepatology (ABSTRACT) |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Speaker 2 | Jennifer Lewis | |
| 12:00 – 12:15 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 12:15 – 12:30 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
| 12:30 – 1:45 | Lunch and poster session | ||
| Session 3 | Advanced Tissue Models | ||
| 1:45 – 2:15 | Speaker 1 | Melissa Lambeth Kemp | Quantifying and simulating spatial organization in iPSC-derived tissues |
| 2:15 – 2:45 | Speaker 2 | Shuichi Takayama | |
| 2:45 – 3:00 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 3:00 – 3:15 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
| 3:15 – 3:45 | Coffee break | ||
| Session 4 | In vitro vascular systems | ||
| 3:45 – 4:15 | Speaker 1 | Manu Platt | |
| 4:15 – 4:45 | Speaker 2 | Christopher Hughes | |
| 4:15 – 5:00 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 4:45 – 5:15 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
| 5:15 – 6:00 | DEI Career Panel | Mareisha Donald, Manu Platt, and Insoo Hyun | |
| 6:00 – | Dinner | ||
Thursday, March 27th
Room Palmetto Ballroom
Session |
Speaker |
Talk Title |
|
| 9:00 – 9:45 | Keynote (morning) | Kimberly Homan | The Route from Development to Deployment of M-CELS for Drug Development (ABSTRACT) |
| Session 5 | Cell and tissue mechanics | ||
| 9:45 – 10:15 | Speaker 1 | Valerie Horsley | Mechanical regulation of tissue fibrosis |
| 10:15 – 10:45 | Speaker 2 | Tracy Hookway | |
| 10:45 – 11:00 | Coffee break (Room May 1 & 2) | ||
| Session 6 | Synthetic biology approaches to Organoid generation | ||
| 11:00 – 11:30 | Speaker 1 | Leonardo Morsut | |
| 11:30 – 12:00 | Speaker 2 | Mo Ebrahimkhani | Modeling the Black Box of Human Development to Advance Regenerative Medicine (ABSTRACT) |
| 12:00 – 12:15 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 12:15 – 12:30 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
| 12:30 – 2:00 | Lunch (May 1 & 2) and poster session (Sabal 1 & 2) | ||
| 2:00 – 2:45 | Keynote (afternoon) | Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic | Patient-specific Organs-on-Chip models of human pathophysiology (ABSTRACT) |
| 2:45 – 3:15 | Ethics, Societal Considerations, & Policies | Insoo Hyun | |
| 3:15 – 3:45 | Coffee break (Room May 1 & 2) | ||
| Session 8 | Disease modeling | ||
| 3:45 – 4:15 | Speaker 1 | Joseph Wu | Stem Cells & Genomics: From Precision Medicine to Clinical Trials in Dish |
| 4:15 – 4:45 | Speaker 2 | Milica Radisic | |
| 4:45 – 5:00 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 5:00 – 5:15 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
| 5:15 – 5:45 | NSF program manager | ||
Friday March 28th
Room Palmetto Ballroom
Session |
Speaker |
Talk Title |
|
| 9:00 – 9:45 | Keynote | Alysson Muotri | Modeling human neurodevelopment using brain organoids (ABSTRACT) |
| Session 9 | In vitro cardiac and skeletal muscle | ||
| 9:45 – 10:15 | Speaker 1 | Ritu Raman | Tissue Engineering Multicellular Models of the Motor Control System for Medicine and Machines (ABSTRACT) |
| 10:15 – 10:45 | Speaker 2 | Oscar Abilez | |
| 10:45 – 11:15 | Coffee break (Room May 1 & 2) | ||
| Session 10 | Organ on chip | ||
| 11:15 – 11:45 | Speaker 1 | Ankur Singh | Human immune organoids and immune-on-chip to decode immunity in healthy donors and cancer patients (ABSTRACT) |
| 11:45 – 12:15 | Speaker 2 | Linda Griffith | |
| 12:15 – 12:30 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-1 | ||
| 12:15 – 12:45 | Short talks/Sponsor talks-2 | ||
IMPORTANT DATES:
Abstract submission: 01/20/2025
Submit an Abstract
Notification of acceptance: 02/03/2025
Early registration: 02/14/2025
Register
Late registration: Onsite
Conference dates: March 26-28, 2025