What we investigate

Our laboratory focuses on the engineering and application of functional biomaterials. One area of interest is the fabrication of hydrogels as defined mimics of the extracellular matrix to study cell physiology and pathophysiology outside of the body. We also develop biomaterials to aid in tissue repair or disease management.

KEYWORDS
3D cell culture, biomedical engineering, drug delivery, mechanobiology, tissue repair

Merged wide-field fluorescence image of primary human dermal fibroblasts encapsulated in 3D hydrogels, 4 days after encapsulation. The cells were labelled for F-actin with Alexa Fluor 488-phalloidin (green) and DNA (nucleus) with DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 150 μm. (Image credit: O. Dudaryeva, N. Moro).
Merged wide-field fluorescence image of primary human dermal fibroblasts encapsulated in 3D hydrogels, 4 days after encapsulation. The cells were labelled for F-actin with Alexa Fluor 488-phalloidin (green) and DNA (nucleus) with DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 150 μm. (Image credit: O. Dudaryeva, N. Moro).
Our research in more detail

The study of cell function within controlled environments outside of the body offers unique opportunities to investigate specific hypotheses about tissue physiology and pathophysiology. To recapitulate cell function ex vivo, defined mimics of the extracellular matrix for 3D cell culture are needed to provide an environment with the suitable biochemical and biophysical properties. Therefore, we are working to design a range of hydrogel-based material platforms for the study of dermal cell biology. These materials enable the direct encapsulation of cells, for example primary dermal fibroblasts, and enable downstream molecular biology readouts and in situ imaging. These simplified 3D tissue models offer a complementary approach to in vivo analysis and enable more physiologic investigations than standard cell culture on 2D plastic. We apply these models to study dermal fibroblast mechanobiology and its role in disease progression and to culture tumor spheroids within 3D tissue models as a replacement for traditional xenograft cancer models. These projects are done in collaboration with SKINTEGRITY.CH partners.

A translational benefit of this research is that the same materials can be designed for regeneration of functional tissue in vivo. Thus, we are also exploring how to leverage what we learn from 3D cell culture to design material platforms for acute and chronic wound repair.

 
Prof. Mark Tibbitt


Prof. Mark Tibbitt
ETH Zurich
Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering
Sonneggstrasse 3
8092 Zurich

Email   Website

Selected publications

SKINTEGRITY.CH Principal Investigators are in bold:

  • Emiroglu DB, Bekcic A, Dranseikiene D, Zhang X, Zambelli T, deMello AJ, and Tibbitt MW (2022). Building block properties govern granular hydrogel mechanics through contact deformations. Adv., 8, eadd857.
  • Marco-Dufort B, R. Janczy J, Hu T, Lutolf M, Gatti F, Wolf M, Woods A , Tetter S, Sridhar BV, and Tibbitt MW (2022). Thermal stabilization of diverse biologics using reversible hydrogels. Adv., 8, eabo0502.
  • van der Valk DC+, van der Ven CFT+, Blaser MC, Grolman JM, Wu PJ, Fenton OS, Lee LH, Tibbitt MW,Andresen J, Wen JR, Ha AH, Body SC, Mooney DJ, van Mil A, Sluijter JPG, Aikawa M, Hjortnaes J, Langer R, and Aikawa E (2018) Nanoindentation-based biomechanics drive engineering of a 3D-bioprinted human heart valve disease model. Nanomaterials8, 296. +Joint first authors
  • Ragelle H+, Tibbitt MW+, Wu SY, Castillo MA, Cheng GZ, Gangadharan SP, Anderson DG, Cima MJ, and Langer R (2018). Surface tension-assisted additive manufacturing. Nat. Commun. 9, 1184. +Joint first authors
  • Yang C+, Tibbitt MW+, Basta L, and Anseth KS (2014) Mechanical memory and dosing influence stem cell fate. Nat. Mater. 13, 645. +Joint first authors