Professor Milica Radisic earns NSERC’s John C. Polanyi Award

Reposted from University of Toronto Engineering News.

Professor Milica Radisic (BME, ChemE) has received this year’s John C. Polanyi Award from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). 

“When I got the call telling me I had won, I was surprised and ecstatic,” says Radisic. 

“It’s a bit unusual for a chemical engineer, as opposed to a chemist, to win this award. But I think it speaks to the importance of polymer chemistry and material design in the work that we do.” 

Radisic, who holds the Canada Research Chair in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering, leads a research team that develops new ways to grow human cells and tissues outside the body. 

These lab-grown constructs — generally termed organs-on-a-chip — are a powerful tool for studying a wide range of diseases. They can also be used to test new drug candidate molecules for both effectiveness and potential side effects, reducing the need for animal models. In the future, they could even be used to repair organ damage that is presently irreversible. 

While culturing human cells in petri dishes has been possible for decades, too often these cells do not look or behave like those in the human body. Radisic and her team use innovative, biocompatible polymer materials and unique microfabrication techniques to design scaffolds that enable these cells to grow in a more realistic environment. 

For example, the team has grown tiny patches of heart tissue using a pulsing electric current to make them beat more strongly, just like a miniature training gym. They have also created a small-scale model of a human left heart ventricle that can pump fluid inside a bioreactor. 

In partnership with other researchers, they have used organ-on-a-chip models to gain valuable insights into diseases such as COVID-19 and cardiac muscle disease, as well as to study interactions between the heart and the immune system. Radisic has also commercialized her work by launching companies such as TARA Biosystems Inc., (now part of Valo) and Quthero. 

“This award will advance our goal of understanding the structure-function relationships that shape our native tissues, and continue developing ways to replicate them in the lab,” says Radisic. 

“Polymer chemistry and microfabrication enable us to precisely tailor the mechanical properties and microstructure of our devices to get the cells to grow in a certain orientation or behave in certain ways. That’s what enables our devices to catalyze drug discovery and the study complex diseases.” 

The John C. Polanyi Award is the latest in a series of honours earned by Radisic. In 2023, she was awarded the international Humboldt Research prize and named a Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and has also received the 2020 Killam Fellowship from the Canada Council for the Arts, the 2019 Research and Development Medal from the Ontario Professional Engineers Awards and the 2018 YWCA Toronto Woman of Distinction award.  

“What keeps me motivated to do this work is really the magic and wonder of the natural world,” says Radisic. 

“Within my domain, that means looking at heart cells and the cells that surround them, and really understanding not just how they work on their own, but also, how we can use that knowledge to make something we need. I’m inspired by sheer curiosity about how things work.”

“Through rich collaborations with experts in medicine, polymer science, cell biology and many other fields, Professor Radisic’s work is advancing new ways to diagnose and treat disease, improving the quality of life for people all over the world,” says Christopher Yip, Dean of U of T Engineering. 

“On behalf of the entire Faculty, I warmly congratulate her on this well-deserved honour.”