Can we chip away at disease?

Centre of the Cell’s Big Question Lectures are brought to you by top scientists at Queen Mary, in partnership with Centre of the Cell and co-created with young people from our Youth Membership Scheme. They give audiences from age 14 the chance to hear from leaders in science and healthcare about the cutting-edge biology and innovative front-line medicine going on right here in east London.

 

Doctor Timothy Hopkins speaks about organ-ona-chip technology in his Big Question Lecture.

‘Organ-on-a-chip’ is an innovative, rapidly growing technology which combines biology and engineering to create models (laboratory-based copies) of human tissues. Within these ‘organ-chips’, human cells are grown in small chambers and channels that allow for the complex biological, biochemical and biomechanical environments found in the human body to be recreated. These models can then be used to understand how tissues develop, how they function, how they are affected by disease and how they respond to treatments.

 

Dr Tim Hopkins is a researcher at Queen Mary University of London. He did his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Plymouth and then completed his PhD in Biomedical Engineering at Keele University before moving to QMUL.