Xueju "Sophie" Wang is developing a "micro-lab" to support organoid growth and functional evaluation
Portrait of Associate Professor Xueju "Sophie" Wang in the Connecticut 1 Research Building on Oct. 27, 2026. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)
Xueju "Sophie" Wang, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has received a $2.25 million National Institutes of Health Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35) to develop an advanced platform that will support the development of organoids and their potential applications in biomedical research.
Organoids are miniature, 3D tissue models grown in the lab from stem cells. They reproduce certain structural and functional features of human organs, offering a promising way to study development and disease.
Organoids could help researchers develop drugs and evaluate treatment options with more accuracy and efficiency. They allow researchers to test potential therapeutics in human-relevant tissue models earlier in development and reduce reliance on animal models.
"Organoid research has developed a lot in the past few years," Wang says. "In the biomedical field, using tissue models to reduce reliance on small animals is an important goal. This is a very important topic, not just in the U.S., but internationally."
Organoids could even help make advances in personalized medicine by using a patient's own cells to grow an organoid.
"Basically, you can test the response of a specific patient to a drug," Wang says.
at the Connecticut 1 Research Building on Oct. 27, 2026. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)
However, organoids have faced significant challenges. Many lack the structural and functional complexity of actual organs. For example, most do not have fully functional blood vessel networks which, in human bodies, are responsible for distributing nutrients and removing waste throughout the body.
"If you simply rely on passive diffusion, nutrition cannot reach the center of the organoid," Wang says. "This will cause the cells in the center of the organoid to not be able to further develop. They will start to die due to insufficient nutrient delivery. That's a big issue that prevents the growth of organoids."
With this new grant, Wang will address these challenges by developing an innovative 3D platform. The platform will integrate soft electronic and microfluidic technologies- essentially a miniature laboratory, or "micro-lab," to support organoid growth and functional evaluation.
Many conventional platforms used to evaluate organoids are flat. This is a significant limitation when looking at organoids, which are 3D structures.
"If you want to have a comprehensive evaluation, then you need to develop a 3D platform," Wang says.
Wang will develop 3D electronic networks capable of evaluating the functionality of organoids in real time. The sensors will measure biologically relevant signals, including temperature, strain, pH, and biochemical biomarkers.
This project builds on Wang's previous research in soft electronics, 3D microstructures, and biomedical sensing technologies.
Wang will also develop a 3D microfluidic network that mimics the human vascular system to improve nutrient delivery within organoids, addressing a major obstacle to their growth and maturation. The soft framework is designed to morph and adapt as organoids grow and change shape.
During the five-year project, Wang will evaluate the platform's potential for drug screening using organoid models, including brain and cardiac organoids.
By comparing responses across different testing conditions, Wang will assess how effectively the platform can support studies of drug effects in human-relevant tissue models.
Ultimately, Wang hopes to make the platform available to biomedical researchers.
"It could be used for drug screening, personalized medicine, and disease modeling," Wang says. "Once it is developed, it could have a wide range of biomedical applications."
