University of Connecticut's Xueju Wang in Storrs, Connecticut Wins a $2.25 Million NIH MIRA Award: A Five-Year Project to Build a 3D Organoid "Micro-Lab," to Be
STORRS, Connecticut — The University of Connecticut reported on November 9 that Xueju "Sophie" Wang, associate professor of materials science and engineering, has received a $2.25 million Maximizing Investigators' Research Award (MIRA) (R35) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to develop an advanced three-dimensional platform that will support organoid growth and functional evaluation.
According to the university, organoids are miniature 3D tissue models grown in the lab from stem cells that reproduce certain structural and functional features of human organs, offering a way to study development and disease, test potential therapeutics in human-relevant tissue models earlier in development and reduce reliance on animal models. Many organoids, however, lack fully functional blood vessel networks, so nutrition relying on passive diffusion cannot reach the center, and central cells cannot develop further and begin to die from insufficient nutrient delivery.
With the five-year grant, Wang's team will develop a "micro-lab" integrating soft electronic and microfluidic technologies: three-dimensional electronic networks able to evaluate organoid functionality in real time, with sensors measuring temperature, strain, pH and biochemical biomarkers, and a 3D microfluidic network mimicking the human vascular system to improve nutrient delivery, on a soft framework designed to morph as organoids grow and change shape. During the project, Wang will evaluate the platform's potential for drug screening using organoid models, including brain and cardiac organoids. Wang said the platform, once developed, could be used for drug screening, personalized medicine and disease modeling.
来源链接：康涅狄格大学发布（today.uconn.edu）： https://today.uconn.edu/2026/11/nih-grant-supports-development-of-innovative-3d-organoid-platform-for-drug-discovery/
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Source: University of Connecticut
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 康涅狄格大学校园（资料图）。（Wikimedia Commons）|The University of Connecticut campus (file photo). (Wikimedia Commons)
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