Our laboratory participates in a national multi-institutional program developing “meta soft organ” modules - transplantable liver and pancreatic tissue units designed to minimize immune rejection. The overall project integrates stem-cell engineering, biomaterials, biofabrication, and regulatory translation to ultimately enable scalable engineered organ production.

Our group leads the robotics and automation axis of the project. We develop technologies that allow precise gripping, manipulation, assembly, and automated culture of living soft organ modules. 

Key elements include:

• robotic grippers for fragile, deformable organ modules

• automated assembly of multiple modules into functional organ constructs

• AI-based perception and quality assessment of modules during manufacturing

• integration with 3D bioprinting lines for end-to-end automated production

• design of GMP-compatible robotic manufacturing systems for clinical translation

Through this work, our lab aims to establish the foundation of soft-tissue robotic biofabrication - a critical step toward large-scale, standardized production of transplantable bioengineered organs.