Although her research interests run the gamut from cell and molecular biology to nanotechnology and biomedical engineering, one organ attracts the bulk of Sangeeta Bhatia?s attention: the liver. Her mother, who grew up in Bombay, told her that the philosophers of ancient Greece and India considered the liver the ?center of everything.? Now the director of the Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bhatia shares that view.
Bhatia is working on engineering healthy, implantable liver tissue as an alternative for the tens of thousands of people currently awaiting liver transplants. The first challenge is to culture liver cells outside the body while preserving their functionality. ?Architecture is critical,? she says. ?If you arrange the cells properly, surrounding them with the right neighbors, you can create an environment and community that functions better.?
Borrowing techniques such as photolithography from the microchip industry, Bhatia and her colleagues have ...
