For the Good of Innovation
The Application Window is Now Closed for the Stem Cell & Organoid Reagents Grant
Our Reagent Grant Program offered three $10,000 grants to support projects pushing the boundaries of stem cell and organoid research. We were overwhelmed by the participation and quality of project proposals, and are pleased to announce that our Reagent Grants have been successfully awarded.
Meet the winners!
Jihye Baek
Senior Scientist // Qureator, Inc. // San Diego, CA, USA
Project Goal: Developing an organoid-on-a-chip platform to model the distinct microenvironmental features of colorectal cancer.
This application pushes the boundaries of organoid-based disease modeling by reconstructing the vascular, stromal, and immune complexity of colorectal tumors within a controlled microfluidic system. The vTIME platform (a vascularized Tumor-Immune MicroEnvironment organoid-on-a-chip model) enables side-by-side interrogation of microsatellite-instability-high (MSI-H) tumors, which often respond to immunotherapy, and microsatellite-stable (MSS) tumors, which comprise the majority of colorectal cancers and are largely resistant to current immunotherapies, while leveraging Bio-Techne reagents in a clearly defined, end-to-end workflow.
Shiden Solomon
Post-doctoral researcher // University of Pennsylvania // Philadelphia, PA, USA
Project Goal: Developing an inducible iPSC line that enables controlled, reproducible expression of an optimized transcription factor set to generate microglia.
The proposal addresses a major bottleneck in the field: the lack of scalable, adult-like human microglia. Its integration of precise genome engineering with an optimized, inducible transcriptional factor set driven program offers a broadly enabling platform with the potential to accelerate discovery across neurodegeneration, neuroinflammation, and therapeutic development. We look forward to seeing the impact this work will have on advancing human microglia models and downstream discovery.
Antoni de Padua Homs Corbera
CEO // OWL Lifesciences // Paris, France
Project Goal: Developing an in vitro vascularized assembloid model of the human central nervous system, integrating a functional and reproducible blood-brain barrier.
This project proposes building a truly complex 3D model, using iPSCs to self-organize the neurovascular unit rather than just forcing cells together. It addresses the real need for a vascularized system that can handle flow and shear stress. This is the kind of advanced 3D biology that will finally give us predictive human data and represents the next stage in organoid biology!