Dear TCES members,

Due to the success of our virtual seminar series over the summer, we have decided to continue them each month.

The first seminar will be on Thursday 19th November from 1130-1215 and will feature Dr Eileen Gentleman from King’s College.

The abstract is below and the link to join is: https://eu.bbcollab.com/guest/9d08cfa20c8442b39a08303020194a8b

This seminar is hosted by the University of Southampton.

Please register on this Eventbrite page.

An abstract is below.

Best wishes

The TCES committee.

Modular PEG hydrogels for organoid-based disease modelling

Dr Eileen Gentleman, King’s College, London

Thursday 19th November 2020, 1130am

Pathological matrix remodelling plays a central role in many human diseases, but is challenging to study as in vitro models often cannot replicate the complex 3D cell-matrix interactions that drive pathologies. In this seminar, I will discuss how we built a 3D model of the human gut that allowed us to uncover an unexpected role for a rare immune cell type called ILC1 in driving gut fibrosis in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases. We used molecular dynamics simulations to design PEG hydrogels that cross-link quickly, but can still mimic the stiffness of normal intestinal tissue. We then co-cultured encapsulated human intestinal organoids with ILC1, and using a combination of atomic force microscopy force spectroscopy and multiple particle tracking microrheology, found that ILC1 drive intestinal matrix remodelling through a balance of MMP9-mediated matrix degradation and TGFβ1-driven fibronectin deposition. Our findings demonstrate the potential of using hydrogels in disease modelling, and open the possibility of unravelling how pathological matrix remodelling contributes to disease.

Eileen Gentleman is a Senior Research Fellow and Principal Investigator in the Centre for Craniofacial and Regenerative Biology at King's College London.

She joined Imperial College London in 2005 as post-doctoral research associate (Stevens Group) after completing her PhD in Biomedical Engineering (Tulane University, USA). In 2011, she was awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Career Development Fellowship and moved to King's where her research focuses on developing biomaterials to modulate the physical and biological properties of the 3D cell niche to control stem cell differentiation for tissue engineering. Her work has been published in Nature Materials, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, and Biomaterials.

Eileen has received funding awards from the Wellcome Trust, the Rosetrees Trust, the Royal Society and Orthopaedic Research UK, and is a recipient of both a Wellcome Image Award (2016) and an MIT Koch Institute Image Award (2016). The Orthopaedic Research Society named her as a finalist for their New Investigator Recognition Award (2010) and in 2013 her work in regenerative medicine was recognised with a prestigious Philip Leverhulme Prize.

TCES virtual seminar series - Dr Eileen Gentleman seminar