Dr. Sharon Fleischer’s Organ-on-a-Chip & Tissue Engineering Laboratory

The laboratory specializes in engineering human tissue and organ-on-a-chip platforms that integrate human stem cells, advanced biomaterials, and controlled microenvironments to model physiology and disease with high translational relevance.

Key capabilities include:

Multiscale Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering: Design and fabrication of human organ-on-a-chip systems that combine induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC)–derived tissues with microfluidics, mechanical stimulation, and precisely controlled biochemical cues to recapitulate organ-level structure and function.
Human Stem Cell–Based Disease Models: Generation of patient-specific and disease-specific cardiac and neuromuscular models, enabling investigation of mechanisms in autoimmune cardiac disease, circadian regulation of cardiac function, spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), and tissue aging.
Advanced Biomaterials and Tissue Microenvironments: Development and optimization of biomaterial scaffolds and extracellular matrix–mimicking environments that support tissue maturation, regeneration, and long-term functional stability in engineered constructs.
Functional and Mechanistic Readouts: Integration of high-content imaging, contractility measurements, electrophysiology, and molecular profiling to quantify tissue function and uncover mechanistic links between microenvironment, disease processes, and therapeutic response.

Applications
The lab’s research finds applications in:

Translational Cardiac Research: Creating human cardiac tissue models to study autoimmune injury, inflammatory remodeling, and time-of-day (circadian) effects on cardiac physiology and drug responses. These platforms enable more predictive assessment of candidate therapies and mechanisms compared to conventional 2D cultures.

Neuromuscular Disease Modeling: Building engineered neuromuscular junction and muscle-on-a-chip systems for disorders such as SMA, providing human-relevant platforms to dissect disease pathways and evaluate novel interventions.

Regenerative Medicine & Aging: Using engineered tissues and biomaterial strategies to probe aging-associated decline in tissue function and to test regenerative and rejuvenation approaches in controlled human model systems.

Microphysiological Systems for Mechanism Discovery: Employing multi-organ and multi-tissue microphysiological systems to connect cellular- and tissue-level phenotypes with systemic disease processes and therapeutic mechanisms of action.

Potential Markets