Nuraina Dahlan

Project Summary: My research at VIDO as a Living-Skies Postdoctoral Fellow focuses on establishing a novel approach to develop respiratory tissue models using next-generation bioprinting technologies. Current respiratory research platforms face a critical challenge – relevance to human lung architecture and low success rates in translating studies performed in conventional 2D cell culture models. I am interested in finding a solution over traditional two-dimensional cell culture systems, which lack the fidelity to replicate the true physiological condition of human lungs. These 3D respiratory models will serve as a powerful tool for studying the interactions between host cells and respiratory pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2 and Mycobacterium tuberculosis in a controlled environment to better understand lung homeostasis and infectious disease mechanisms. The presence of advanced 3D respiratory models will also offer an opportunity to explore respiratory treatments and potential therapeutics to improve patient outcomes.

Internal Mentor: Dr. Daniel Chen, Dr. Gurpreet Aulakh, Dr. Arinjay Banerjee and Dr. Neeraj Dhar

External Mentors: Dr. Boyang Zhang, McMaster University and Founder of Organo Biotech