Inflammation-on-a-Chip: Redefining How We Study Immune Responses
Abstract:

The innate immune response must coordinate diverse cell populations to eliminate pathogens, heal wounds, and maintain tissue homeostasis. This coordination depends on dynamic communication between immune cells and their surrounding tissue environment, yet even subtle disruptions in these interactions can drive chronic inflammation and contribute to diseases including cancer, cardiovascular disease, fibrosis, and autoimmunity. As immunotherapies continue to transform the treatment of disease, a central challenge remains: understanding how innate immune cells integrate complex environmental cues to execute precise, context-dependent functions.

A major obstacle to answering this question has been the lack of experimental models that recapitulate the human inflammation microenvironment. Conventional in vitro systems often fail to capture the three-dimensional architecture of tissues or critical multicellular interactions that shape immune responses in vivo. In this seminar, I will present our research investigating cell-cell interactions using our “inflammation-on-a-chip” microphysiological system with a focus on critical signaling between myeloid cells, neutrophils, and the vascular endothelium.

Bio:
Laurel Hind is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado – Boulder. She received her BS in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2009 and her PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania in 2015 before beginning her postdoc at University of Wisconsin – Madison. She joined the faculty at the University of Colorado – Boulder in January 2020. Her research group is broadly interested in using engineered devices to understand how diverse signals in the tissue microenvironment regulate the innate immune response. She received an NIGMS R35 Early Investigator MIRA award in 2021, was awarded an NSF CAREER award in 2025, and was named a CMBE Rising Star in 2025.