Scott Atwood
University of California-Irvine, CA·Biology
Skin organoids, which amount to human skin grown in a dish, could serve as models of development and disease and as a platform for testing drugs. A key question is whether they faithfully copy how real skin forms.
- Fields
Biology
Biomedical Engineering
Mathematics & Statistics
- Topics
skin organoids
human skin equivalents
epidermis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Dec 2026
What they work on
- Define the stem cell states and transition states human epidermal progenitors pass through as they form layered skin, using single-cell RNA sequencing of organoids grown on engineered substrates.
- Develop computational tools that join dynamic models of cell state change with spatial imaging data, mapping how neighboring skin cells communicate and where they sit.
- Build multiscale models of when, where and how keratinocytes, the main cells of the outer skin layer, acquire their fates, to guide the growth of fully functioning skin in vitro.
More about the research
The outer skin layer, the epidermis, is built when stem cells mature step by step into stacked layers of keratinocytes, the main skin cells. Scientists still do not fully understand these stem cell states or how the cells interact as they mature.
Why it matters
Better-defined skin organoids could give researchers a more faithful lab model of human skin. That model could support studies of development, normal skin upkeep in adults and disease. The project names preclinical drug testing as one use, which could reduce reliance on less accurate models when testing treatments that act on the skin. The computational tools for analyzing single cells in space could also be applied to other tissues.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anne Nichols
University of Rochester, NY·Physiology·Early-career
Build a spatial and time-course atlas of how GLAST-lineage epitenon progenitors and Scx-expressing tenocytes respond to load. The approach combines genetic lineage tracing in mice with integrated spatial and single-cell RNA sequencing.
Terry Lechler
Duke University, NC·Biology
Determine the molecular mechanisms that recruit mRNAs and translation regulators to desmosomes, the adhesion structures that bind skin cells together, at the cell edge.
Michael Blatchley
Syracuse University, NY·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Test how light-triggered softening or stiffening of a PEG hydrogel matrix changes the cell-type makeup and maturation of iPSC-derived intestinal epithelial organoids over time.
The school
University of California-Irvine: 46 labs on PI Pages, $645M a year on research, 524 research doctorates a year.
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