Angelo Mao
FACULTY CANDIDATE
Research Associate
Wyss Institute
Harvard Medical School
Seminar Information
Tunable biomaterials underlie numerous approaches for therapy, diagnostics, and basic biological research. Developing methods to shape materials with appropriate properties is needed for successful deployment of material-based strategies. In this seminar, I will highlight concepts for engineering material properties that leverage microfluidic technologies and synthetic biology, respectively. I will first describe a droplet generation technique to template polymer hydrogels into microgels, which enables biocompatible single-cell encapsulation. I show that this approach lends itself to fabricating complex in vitro systems, and increases the survival and immunomodulatory capabilities of transplanted marrow stromal cells. I will then outline complementary approaches using synthetic biology tools, specifically the CRISPR system, to endow soft materials with novel sense-and-respond capabilities. These concepts have potential to expand the capabilities of biomaterials for a wide range of applications.
Dr. Angelo Mao is a Wyss Technology Fellow and postdoctoral associate at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School. His research, under the mentorship of Professor James Collins, is focused on using synthetic biology to engineering materials with novel responsive capabilities. He obtained his doctoral degree in Bioengineering from Harvard University. His graduate research in Professor David Mooney’s laboratory centered on developing a microfluidic method for single-cell encapsulation into hydrogel scaffolds, and deploying this technique for increasing complexity of in vitro systems and improving cell therapies in vivo. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Sciences, with a focus on Bioengineering, from Harvard University.