Serpooshan

for tissue manufacturing & analysis

Lab

About Us

The Serpooshan Team uses a multidisciplinary approach to design and develop micro/nano-scale tissue engineering technologies with the ultimate goal of generating functional tissues and organs. Current projects in my lab include:

1) Bioengineering iPSC-based, functional cardiovascular tissue models, via 3D bioprinting technologies, as in vitro platforms to study human heart development and diseases;

2) Design and manufacturing novel patient-specific cardiac patch systems to regenerate damaged myocardium following ischemic heart injury;

3) 3D bioprinting of functional in vitro models of cortical organoids to study human brain development; and

4) Engineering highly tunable bioprinted models to study pediatric tumor growth, aggression, and response to therapies.

news

Serpooshan Lab NEWS

research

OUR LINES OF RESEARCH

Modeling human heart development & congenital heart disease

Using state-of-the-art 3D bioprinting, perfusion bioreactor, and induced pluripotent stem cell technologies to engineer in vitro models of human heart development and diseases. Studying various cellular and environmental factors underlying congenital heart defects and their therapies.

Advanced cardiac patch devices to regenerate damaged heart tissue

Using a variety of bioengineering approaches, together with human induced pluripotent stem cell technologies and paracrine signalling, to create novel biomaterial-based cardiac patch devices. These patient-specific scaffolds are capable of regenerating the damaged heart tissue following acute injuries such as heart attack.

Smart Nanobiomaterials

Synthesis, characterization, and application of various nano/micro-scale biomaterials for diverse biomedical applications in vitro and in vivo. Examples include: magnetic nanoparticles for antibacterial and imaging applications, conductive nanorods to enhance cardiac tissue function, and nanostructured scaffolds.

our team

Meet The Team

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Zinah Ghazi, BS

Lab Research Specialist

Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics

Emory University School of Medicine

Georgia Institute of Technology

zinah.m.ghazi@emory.edu

Zinah Ghazi received her Bachelor of Science in Biotechnology and her Master of Science in Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology from Baghdad University in Iraq. After moving to the US, Zinah also received an Associate of Science degree from Georgia Piedmont Technical College, in the area of Computer Information System, and graduated with honors. Zinah has extensive international research and job experiences. In the US, she worked as Research Specialist at Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Physiology, and as Database Manager at Amplio Recruiting. Zinah joined the Serpooshan-Bauser-Heaton labs in August 2021 as a Research Specialist, and has been leading the labs managerial works ever since. She has been also leading the lab research efforts in the synthesis and characterization of gelatin methacrylate (gelMA) hydrogel products and their use, as bioink, for 3D bioprinting applications.

Katherine Pham Do, MS

Lab Research Specialist

Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics

Emory University School of Medicine

Georgia Institute of Technology

katherine.do@emory.edu

Katherine Do received her B.S. degree (2017) in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas where her undergraduate research focused on the identification of a genus of bacteria with the capabilities to degrade crude oil. After completing her Bachelor’s, she obtained her M.S. degree (2019) in Biomedical Sciences from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in the lab of Dr. Rodrigo Morales working on projects concerning neurodegenerative diseases. Her M.S. thesis topic was the optimization of the protein misfolding cyclic amplification (PMCA) technique for high-throughput format and utilizing this technique to screen a selection of small molecules for the ability to inhibit the in vitro prion misfolding process. Katherine joined the Serpooshan lab in June 2019 as a Research Lab Specialist, and her research involves working with Dr. Bauser-Heaton to create 3D bioprinted models for congenital heart diseases to study the fluid dynamics and cellular growth of these models

Students

Carmen J. Gil

PhD Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

carmen.julia.gil@emory.edu

Melissa Cadena

PhD Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

mcadena6@gatech.edu

Boeun Hwang

PhD Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

bhwang@gatech.edu

Linqi Jin

PhD Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

ljin30@emory.edu

Maher Saadeh

PhD Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

maher.saadeh@emory.edu

Stefano Zanella

MS Student

Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering

Emory University and

Georgia Institute of Technology

szanell@emory.edu

Lab Alumni

Liqun Ning, PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow

Now: Assistant Professor @ Ohio State U.

Federico Prokopczuk

Hannah Komanapalli

Huyun Chen

Rithvik Sarasani

SURE Program 2018

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

California State University, Northridge

Purdue University

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Rommi Kashlan

Rebecca R. Xu

High School Intern

Now @: BME Undergrad at Georgia Tech

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Bryanna J. Lima

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Alpravinta Alagesan

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Agastya Vaidya

Allison Wombwell

Undergraduate Researcher

Emory University

Undergraduate Researcher

Georgia Institute of Technology

Vahid Serpooshan, PhD

Principlal Investigator

Vahid Serpooshan did his BSc and MSc in Materials Science and Engineering at Sharif University (Tehran, Iran, 1998-2003) and his PhD in biomaterials and tissue engineering at McGill University (Montreal, Canada, 2007-2011). His PhD thesis research focused on the design and optimization of scaffolding biomaterials for bone tissue engineering applications. Following his PhD, Dr. Serpooshan worked for 7 years at Stanford University School of Medicine as Postdoctoral Fellow (Pediatric Cardiology) and Instructor (Stanford Cardiovascular Institute). At Stanford, Dr. Serpooshan's training and research were mainly centered on developing a new generation of engineered cardiac patch device to repair damaged heart tissue following myocardial infarction (heart attack). The engineered patch was successfully tested in mouse and pig models and is now in preparation for clinical trials. He also worked on enabling technologies for human-machine hybrid cardiac tissue, using 3D bioprinting to assemble complex arrays of interfaces between synthetic and biological materials. In 2018, Dr. Vahid Serpooshan joined Emory University and Georgia Institute of Tech as Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Pediatrics, where his multidisciplinary team is now working on a variety of 3D bioprinting-based tissue engineering and disease modeling projects.

Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering

and Pediatrics

Georgia Institute of Technology

Emory University School of Medicine

404.712.9717

vahid.serpooshan@bme.gatech.edu

Holly Bauser-Heaton is an interventional pediatric cardiologist and physician scientist at Sibley Heart Center at Children’s Healthcare of Altanta. She completed her MD, PhD in 2009 at Indiana University. Dr. Bauser-Heaton focused on signaling mechanisms of nitric oxide in hypoxic conditions and continues to investigate the role of NO in endothelial function. As a clinician, she completed her training at Stanford University and joined faculty of Sibley Heart Center in 2016. Pulmonary artery disease and its management is the focus for Dr. Heaton both in the clinical arena and the lab. She is interested in developing new procedures via transcatheter (in the cardiac catheterization laboratory) technique for individuals with pulmonary artery disease. Additionally, she has interest in utilizing 3D bioprinting to create pulmonary artery constructs that have the ability to keep up with a patient’s somatic growth. She is very excited to join forces with the Serpooshan lab.

Holly Bauser-Heaton, MD PhD

Assistant Professor

Pediatric Cardiologist

Sibley Heart Center, Pediatric Cardiology

Emory University School of Medicine

BauserH@kidsheart.com

Martin L. Tomov, PhD

Martin Tomov received his BSc in Biochemistry in Ithaca College in New York (2007) and his PhD in Nanoscale and Materials Bio-Engineering from the Colleges of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in SUNY Polytechnic Institute (2016). His PhD thesis focused on Nanotechnology and Human Stem Cells: Applications in Cardiogenesis and Neurogenesis. He next moved to Boston in 2016, joining the laboratories of Dr. Lee Rubin (Broad/Harvard) and Dr. Mark Bathe (Broad/MIT) at Harvard-MIT, as Postdoctoral Fellow. Dr. Tomov’s postdoctoral research was centered on developing and applying the next generation imaging methods towards drug discovery, analysis of complex cultures, and 3D tissue analogs in low and high throughput settings. Martin is joining the Serpooshan Lab in July 2018, where his research is mainly focusing on using human iPSC technology, 3D bioprinting, and perfusion bioreactor technologies to study congenital heart disease.