Sina Kheiri

Our lab works at the interface of engineering, biology, and medicine to build human models that better capture how disease develops and how patients respond to treatment. Our primary platform is microphysiological systems (MPS), microfabricated devices that recreate key features of human tissue and offer a more human-relevant alternative to conventional cell culture and animal models. While our approaches apply across many diseases, a central focus of our work is cancer.

To achieve this, our work spans three pillars: vascularized tumor models: incorporating both blood and lymphatic vessels as the main routes for drug delivery and cancer spread, and reflecting patient diversity by including sex as a biological variable; biomanufacturing strategies: assembling living building blocks, such as shape-defined tumor organoids, into organized tissues; and computational approaches: using fluid dynamics simulations and machine learning to guide device design and predict tissue behavior. With the goal of translating these technologies into the clinic, our team brings together engineers, biologists, computational scientists, and clinicians who work side by side to improve drug development and patient care.