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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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BioE Ph.D. Thesis Proposal
Rebecca Schneider
Thursday, May 27, 2021, 10:00 AM EST
Link: https://bluejeans.com/326399650
Advisor:
Andrés J. García, Ph.D.
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Committee Members:
John Blazeck, Ph.D.
School of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Ankur Singh , Ph.D.
George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology
Wilbur Lam, Ph.D., MD
Division of Hematology/Oncology, Department of Pediatrics, Emory University
Ross Marklein, Ph.D.
School of Chemical, Materials, and Biomedical Engineering, University of Georgia
High-throughput microfluidic potency assay for human mesenchymal stromal cell products with clinical prediction
Human mesenchymal stromal cells (MSC) are a promising source for regenerative cell therapy. However, MSC market access has been stymied by product variability across MSC donors and manufacturing practices resulting in inconsistent clinical outcomes. The inability to predict MSC in vivo performance is a major limitation of MSC market penetration. Standard metrics of MSC potency employ MSC:peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) co-cultures, however, these assays are challenging to scale due to high PBMC donor variability. To address this challenge, I present a high-throughput, scalable, low-cost microfluidic MSC potency assay with improved MSC secretory correlation to in vivo performance. Traditional planar potency assays have been largely unsuccessful for MSC clinical translation. I demonstrate improved predictive power of the microfluidic platform compared to traditional planar methods by comparison of MSC secretory responses to PBMC co-culture assays. Further, I show analogous MSC secretory performance achieved in the microfluidic platform compared to an in vivo model. Lastly, with early promising results, I am now performing microfluidic potency assay validation by testing clinical samples from the multicenter MILES osteoarthritis clinical study for further system optimization and clinical validation.
