Calin Belta
Boston University, MA·Engineering
Organs are not just collections of cells — they work because cells sit in particular places relative to one another. Reproducing that spatial arrangement outside the body is one of the hardest problems in tissue engineering: lab-grown tissues often contain the right cell types in the wrong pattern.
- Fields
Engineering
Biomedical Engineering
Computer Science
- Topics
microrobotics
organoids
liver organoid
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2027
What they work on
- Develop machine learning methods that classify and quantify multicellular patterns in tissue, so that pattern design can be translated into a well-posed optimization problem.
- Design and control biocompatible microrobots capable of physically guiding how cells organize and differentiate during tissue formation.
- Generate multiscale, multicellular patterns and synthesize three-dimensional patterns containing vasculature to produce a native-like in vitro liver organoid.
- Use the controlled patterning platform to probe how spatial organization relates to cell differentiation and tissue function.
More about the research
This collaborative project asks whether tiny robots, guided by mathematical control and machine learning, can physically place and steer cells so that patterns characteristic of real tissue emerge on demand.
Why it matters
Lab-grown tissues that faithfully copy the layered architecture of real organs would give biologists and drug developers a far better stand-in for human liver than current single-germ-layer organoids. If patterning can be programmed and controlled, the same tools could inform the creation and repair of other synthetic human organs and reveal rules linking a cell's location to its function.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Rebecca Schulman
Johns Hopkins University, MD·Biomedical Engineering
Develop active biomaterial scaffolds with embedded molecular programs that deliver precisely timed, spatially localized signals to cells, mimicking the changing cues of natural development.
Scott Atwood
University of California-Irvine, CA·Biology
Define the stem cell states and transition states human epidermal progenitors pass through as they form layered skin, using single-cell RNA sequencing of organoids grown on engineered substrates.
William Chen
University of South Dakota, SD·Biomedical Engineering
Engineer mouse bone marrow MSCs carrying synthetic genetic circuits that detect inflammatory signals, improve MSC survival and shift tissue inflammation from destructive to constructive, tested in cell, organoid and animal models.
The school
Boston University: 26 labs on PI Pages, $784M a year on research, 630 research doctorates a year.
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