Quinton Smith, Ph.D.
Quinton Smith, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Samueli School of Engineering
The field of tissue engineering is rapidly evolving. Human-induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) have begun to address the limitations of cell sourcing. The biophysical and chemical complexity of human tissues can be mimicked with synthetic materials and engineered microdevices. The marriage of these technologies enables the controlled administration of developmental cues for the study of stem cell differentiation behavior. Additionally, implantation of these immunologically competent cells within engineered extracellular matrices can act in concert to augment or replace diseased tissue in vivo. Given the strength of these platforms, my lab will focus on bridging the gap between fundamental stem cell biology and clinical applicability of hiPSC derived cellular therapies. In particular, my lab will (1) focus on distilling the complexity of early human development to controllable factors, which allow computational modeling of early fate specification. (2) Next, my group will focus on creating synthetic biomaterials that support the differentiation and expansion of stem cell-derived organoids. (3) Finally, with microfluidic and bio-printing mediated assembly, my team will build small and large-scale vascularized tissues from single donor iPSCs for regenerative medicine applications.
