Health and Medical Technologies

Jessica KNG and Kaicheng LIANG

Cancer diagnosis and treatment often require tissue biopsies and resections, which are sent for preparation and microscopy, a process that takes days. For organs requiring complex access such as endoscopy, difficulties in tissue sampling are compounded. In vivo optical techniques may be used for imaging before excision, and fluorescence microscopy may enable rapid imaging of excised tissue. Real-time visualization that approaches the quality and surpasses the coverage of resection histopathology may expedite disease detection. Our unique integration of engineering capabilities include ultrahigh speed photonics, precision optomechanical micro-actuation, and medical device prototyping and fabrication. This project will develop medical systems and minimally invasive devices for intra-operative optical imaging of tissue before and after excision, alongside powerful machine learning techniques for enhancing and interpreting images.

Meusia NEO, Swarnalatha Lucky SASIDHARAN, Jamie MONG

Liquid biopsy leveraging on the non-cellular compartment, in particular circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) profiling is increasingly being used in the clinics for diagnostics. They provide revealing “snapshots” of the tumor condition, but we are unable to learn about dynamic tumor behaviour, such as their response to drugs. In our search for circulating tumor cells (CTCs), we discovered huge cell clusters which appeared atypical of cells in circulation. Since CTCs are so rare in numbers, this project aims to expand the repertoire of cancer-specific biomarkers through deep profiling of cell clusters in circulation. Clusters are currently profiled using high-throughput imaging technology, which we hope to eventually miniaturise on microfluidic chips or devices for ease of implementation. We also aim to apply novel extracellular culture matrices for 3-D cluster culture for cancer drug screening.

Yiqi SEOW

A key step for companies, clinicians and academic groups interested in developing nucleic acid-based diagnostics is to develop a robust workflow customized to meet specific market needs, such as the sample type, enhancement of signal over noise, speed to result, manpower limitations, and country-specific clinical preferences. Supporting novel diagnostic assays with custom auxiliary technologies will create value for our partners that will help them gain an advantage over competing assays in the market. 

Cyrus BEH

Biological assays often involve multiple fluid handling steps, that can make their deployment challenging. To address this, fluidic systems have been developed to perform these operations, in a programmable or automatic manner. Traditionally, these systems are fabricated using lithography and molding, which makes changes to the design an expensive and time-consuming process. In this project, we will develop 3D printing methods to prototype fluidic devices that can be quickly and easily modified. Furthermore, devices made with this approach are not limited to planar devices, but can be composed of multiple fluidic layers, thereby increasing the complexity of the handling steps achievable. This fabrication approach will be applied to support different assay applications.

Cyrus BEH

In medical applications, it is often necessary to fabricate objects that interface with the human body, including prosthetics, cosmetic implants, and electrodes, amongst many others. Typically, this is accomplished using elastomers, due to their deformability, flexibility, and conformability. However, since the human body is composed primarily of hydrogels, certain mismatches persist that limit their function. In this project, we aim to achieve rapid fabrication of hydrogel structures to serve as mechanical, physiological (mediated primarily by diffusion), and electrical interfaces with biological systems, by developing materials tailored to different use cases, as well as leveraging on custom bioprinting capabilities developed in-house.

Farah TASNIM, Xiaozhong HUANG, Yun Ting SOONG, and Hanry YU

Inflammation is severely under-represented in liver models containing only parenchymal cells. Additionally, liver architecture and soluble signal presentations are often not recapitulated in conventional models. In collaboration with EMULSION, we engineer robust liver injury and disease models, using innovative biomaterials as substrates and mini-reactor arrays, and controlled presentation of soluble microenvironment, with co-culture of iPS-induced Kupffer cells and liver parenchymal cells, to recapitulate critical phenotypic markers and for screening compounds affecting drug-induced liver injury and other inflammation-related diseases leading to liver cirrhosis and cancer. Cell sources, cryopreservation methods, culture media and reagents, and derivative drug-testing platforms will be commercialized.

 

 

Samuel Hsi-Chi WANG, Soohyun SONG, and Hanry YU

We have established a technology that can detect potential toxins with high accuracy. This technology has three major advantages:

1) Recapitulation of in vivo physiology is achieved through generation of three in vivo–like germ layers with the subsequent organ or tissue-specific development through differentiated micro-patterned human pluripotent stem cells. The morphology of these in vitro germ layers is sensitive to the exposure of toxins that have been reported to hinder in vivo development.

2) The technology is a preferred alternative to conventional assays that majorly relies on animal testing, which raises concerns regarding cross-species variation, cost, and speed.

3) Finally, the technology is amenable to high-throughput and large-scale screening through integration of 3D-printing techniques for micropattern preparation and machine learning for data classification. By using this technology, a thorough toxicity evaluation of environmental chemicals, agrochemicals, food ingredients and drugs can be achieved in a precise, robust, time and cost-efficient manner.