Quinton Smith, Ph.D., Associate Professor: Stem Cell Fate is a Touchy Subject
SEMINAR (In-Person + Zoom)
This CBE Seminar will be hosted in person as well as online via Zoom. RSVP to receive the zoom link by emailing info@bioengineering.ucsb.edu.
Zoom will open after the host has joined at the start of each seminar. You can ask questions through the chat forum and by raising your "hand" and the speaker will call on you.
Speaker
Quinton Smith, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center
Dept. of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of California, Irvine
Faculty Host
Ryan Stowers
9:00 am in Bldg. ESB Room #1001
Stem Cell Fate is a Touchy Subject
Abstract
The advent of human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) has given us access to study how tissues develop and what might go wrong during those processes. However, traditional approaches for studying developmental biology, rely on static, planar surfaces, that fail to capture the architectural and dynamic complexity of human tissues. Here, I will discuss various approaches to engineer the stem cell niche and unveil how these tools can give insight into how stem cells sense their microenvironment. I’ll focus on how restricting extracellular matrix availability through micropatterning drives stem cell fate and self-organization capacity. In addition, I will describe how substrate compliance can enhance endothelial differentiation efficiency from hiPSCs and discuss microfluidic platforms for investigating their ability to sense shear stress. Finally, I will discuss these approaches in the context of liver biology and efforts towards building functional stem cell derived tissues for regenerative medicine applications.
BIO
Quinton Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of California Irvine. He launched his lab in April 2021, after completing his postdoctoral research in liver tissue engineering, under the mentorship of Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Before his postdoctoral research, Dr. Smith received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. There, he worked under the supervision of Dr. Sharon Gerecht, developing engineering strategies to study how physical stimuli tune vascular specification from human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs). His current research focuses on fabricating vascularized liver tissues from hiPSCs. Additionally, his group focuses on generating stem cell derived gastruloids, which represent self-organized structures that take on features of early embryonic development. Dr. Smith is a Siebel Scholar, Keystone Symposium Fellow, and is supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Hanna Gray Fellowship.
