Michael Blatchley
Syracuse University, NY·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Human intestinal development is hard to study because the tissue is hard to access. Organoids, tiny organ-like structures grown from stem cells, help close that gap.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Biology
Materials Science
- Topics
intestinal organoids
induced pluripotent stem cells
iPSC
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Mar 2027
What they work on
- Test how light-triggered softening or stiffening of a PEG hydrogel matrix changes the cell-type makeup and maturation of iPSC-derived intestinal epithelial organoids over time.
- Use light to soften the matrix in local spots, guiding growing organoids into crypt-like shapes that match in vivo dimensions, and measure how this shaping affects cell fate and maturity.
- Characterize how the extracellular matrix changes globally and locally around growing organoids using expansion microscopy, metabolic labeling of newly made proteins, and single-cell RNA sequencing.
More about the research
Intestinal organoids made from induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), called HIOs, are especially useful, but current recipes produce immature, fetal-like tissue. That limits their value for modeling disease. Most protocols control only dissolved chemical signals. The project proposes that the physical properties of the surrounding scaffold, the extracellular matrix (ECM), also steer how cells mature, and that their timing matters.
Why it matters
Lab-grown mini-guts could serve as better stand-ins for the human intestine in studying development and disease, but today they remain immature. Engineered, light-tunable biomaterials that guide organoids toward adult-like structure and cell types could make these models more realistic and improve how well lab findings translate to patients.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Mark Grimes
University of Montana, MT·Biomedical Engineering
Test whether seeding human neural crest stem cells in 3D hydrogel scaffolds with extracellular matrix components identified in organoids makes craniofacial cartilage faster and more reproducibly than self-organizing organoids.
Quinton Smith
University of California-Irvine, CA·Biomedical Engineering
Test how paracrine signals and mechanical cues guide early cell fate decisions, using micropatterned induced gastrulation models of human induced pluripotent stem cells confined to defined geometries.
Sangkyun Cho
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Test in real time whether releasing mechanical load drives cardiac myofibroblasts back toward a quiescent state, using iPSC-derived fibroblast reporter lines with fluorescently tagged marker genes such as CFP-TAGLN in a dynamically softening hydrogel.
The school
Syracuse University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $199M a year on research, 168 research doctorates a year.
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