Biology and Engineering of Stem Cell Niches

Dr Ajay Vishwakarma is a researcher in the fields of stem cell bio-engineering, biomaterials, tissue engineering, cancer immunology and immuno-engineering; working with Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School and an affiliate at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dr Vishwakarma earned a Doctors degree in Dental Surgery at Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and Masters degree in Tissue Engineering at Cardiff University, UK where he primarily studied signaling pathways involved in musculoskeletal repair and regeneration. He continued mesenchymal stem cell and tissue-engineering research during his fellowship in the Khademhosseini laboratory at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology, USA. Currently he is pursuing a PhD in Cancer Biology with training in Cancer Immunology at the Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa in Prof. Weizhou Zhang’s Laboratory, Department of Pathology, Holden Cancer Center wherein he is studying how regulatory T cells impact cancer progression and metastasis in humanized cancer models. He was a recipient of a stem cell training fellowship from CCMB, a CSIR Indian institute, a graduate research fellowship by National Blood Foundation and National Cancer Institute government grant agencies. In addition to the long-term academic interest; he is committed to translating next generation cell-based therapies and has held key industrial positions in Europe and Asia. He is a co-founder of OCTE Technologies, a biotech start-up utilizing cell and tissue engineering technology platform to solve medical problems.

Dr. Jeff Karp is a leading researcher in the fields of stem cell therapeutics, drug delivery, medical devices,and tissue adhesives. He is an Associate Professor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Principal Faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and an affiliate faculty at the Broad Institute and at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (where he teaches to MIT-Sloan business school students). He has published >100 peer-reviewed papers (with >11,750 citations) and has given 250 national and international invited lectures and has 65 issued or pending patents. Several technologies developed in his lab have formed the foundation for multiple products on the market and currently under development and for the launch of four companies including Skintifique, Gecko Biomedical, Alivio Therapeutics, Frequency Therapeutics.Karp’s work has been discussed in hundreds of newspapers, online websites, television newscasts, and radio shows around the world including CNN, ABC News, NBC, Boston Globe, LA Times, BBC, Discovery, National Geographic, The Atlantic, The Guardian, American Museum for Natural History, Popular Mechanics, CTV Canada AM. Karp has also appeared multiple times on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks and NPR Science Fridays.The Boston Business Journal recognized him as a Champion in Healthcare Innovation and MIT’s Technology Review Magazine (TR35) also recognized Dr. Karp as being one of the top innovators in the world (3 members from his laboratory have subsequently received this award).His work has been selected by Popular Mechanic's "Top 20 New Biotech Breakthroughs that Will Change Medicine. He gave a TEDMED talk at the Kennedy Center in DC on bioinspired medical innovation and since 2015 has been a member of the TEDMED Editorial Advisory Board (only member to be elected to the board 3 years in a row). In 2015 and 2016 he received Breakthrough Awards from the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and in 2015 was a commencement speaker in at the University of Toronto. He also serves as a consultant to the Kenneth Rainin Foundation and the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation on the topic of new technologies for Inflammatory Bowel Disease. He has deep consulting expertise with startups and with several Fortune 500 companies across a wide spectrum of areas including drug delivery, medical devices, consumer healthcare products, and stem cell therapeutics.Dr. Karp was selected as the Outstanding Faculty Undergraduate Mentor among all Faculty at MIT and he received the HST McMahon Mentoring award for being the top mentor of Harvard-MIT students. To date, 18 trainees from his laboratory have secured faculty positions and several have transitioned into impactful careers in pharma, biotech, medtech, and venture capital.