Harrison L Hiraki, PhD
University of Michigan, Department of Surgery
Rogel and Blondy Center for Pancreatic Cancer
Title of Research: Organotypic microfluidic system to interrogate tumor-endothelial cell crosstalk and identify drug targets to hinder metastatic disease
Brief Project Description: We leverage organotypic microfluidic systems within which tumor ductal structures are patterned adjacent to engineered vasculature. Along with transcriptomic and secretomic analysis, we plan to 1) identify tumor-associated vasculature signatures that contribute to vascular invasion and metastatic disease and 2) incorporate a panel of patient-derived tumor organoid lines within high-throughput microfluidics to screen drug targets that can disrupt tumor-vasculature signaling axes and vascular invasion.
Dr. Hiraki’s Bio
I am a postdoctoral research fellow in the Departments of Surgery and Cancer Biology at the University of Michigan under Dr. Timothy Frankel and Dr. Marina Pasca di Magliano with a long-standing goal of studying cancer cell invasion and metastasis. My research combines approaches from materials science, tissue engineering, and cell biology to engineer organotypic systems modeling the pancreatic tumor microenvironment. My current work incorporates patient-derived pancreatic tumor lines within vascularized microfluidic devices to investigate vasculature-tumor interactions with a long-term goal of identifying soluble crosstalk axes and drug targets that may help hinder vascular invasion and metastatic disease.