Mice, or Microfluidics? Humanizing Biomedical Research, Inspired by Women’s Health Challenges

Join us for the second seminar series event hosted by the Women's Health Program (WHx) at the MIT Media Lab, featuring Linda Griffith, who is Professor of Teaching Innovation at the MIT School of Engineering and director of the MIT Center for Gynepathology Research.

Dr. Canan Dagdeviren, head of the Conformable Decoders research group and WHx Faculty Lead, will moderate the event. The WHx seminar series is supported by the WHx program and the Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS). 

Abstract

Despite much attention around “women’s health” in the popular press, the investment community, and academia, the “ick factor” and mysteriousness of human menstruation arguably remains a force field that repels talent and resources from flowing into diverse areas of women’s health. Gynecology remains one of the least-funded areas of human health. At the same time, research and development in many chronic inflammatory diseases—which often skew female—is hindered by the use of poorly representative animal models for disease mechanisms and therapeutic validation.

The animal-human gaps, especially in immunology,  have spurred two concurrent technological developments that are now merging: systems biology/immunology and microphysiological systems (aka “organs on chips”, or living patient avatars). The NIH has launched  the “Complement-ARIE” (Complement Animal Research In Experimentation) program to bolster technology development and deployment in this merger of systems biology and microphysiological systems.

In this talk, guest speaker Linda Griffith proposes that gynecology presents fascinating opportunities to set the performance bar for new technologies that will have broad applicability in all of biomedical research. Detailed examples of engineering avatars for endometriosis will provide specific technical insights, and motivate mechanistic connections between menstruation processes and other chronic inflammatory diseases that skew female.  We envision that exploiting this wave of humanization efforts by using gynecological problems as the first application will not only direct new funding into gynecology, but also have a tremendous impact on “menstruation science” as a foundation for the many ramifications on systemic health imposed by the requirements of human female reproduction.