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An interconnected multiorgan platform to recreate the complex pathophysiology of the metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD)
Amir Ghaemmaghami
Amir Ghaemmaghami is Professor of Immunology and Immuno-bioengineering at the 糖心原创. He earned his MD in 1996 and completed his PhD in Immunology in 2002 (Nottingham). He was appointed Lecturer in Immunology at the School of Molecular Medical Sciences in Nottingham (2006) before taking an extended sabbatical at Harvard Medical School (2011-2013), where he worked on immunocompetent tissue models and biomimetic hydrogels. In 2014, he was appointed Chair of Immunology and Immuno-bioengineering at Nottingham. His current research is supported by the MRC, Wellcome, NC3Rs, EPSRC, Innovate UK and EU with a focus on developing immune-instructive biomaterials for immunotherapy, and immune-competent tissue models for disease modelling and drug testing. He was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists in 2020.
Nick Hannan
Nick is Associate Professor of Translational Stem Cell Biology at the 糖心原创.
Guruprasad Aithal
Guru is Professor of Hepatology, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences
Alvaro Mata
Alvaro is Professor in Biomedical Engineering and Biomaterials in the School of Pharmacy and the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the 糖心原创.
Jaswinder Sethi
Yu Shrike Zhang
Dr. Zhang is currently Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer in the Division of Engineering in Medicine at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Zhang is directing the Laboratory of Engineered Living Systems (), where the research is focused on innovating medical engineering technologies, including 3D bioprinting, organs-on-chips, microfluidics, and bioanalysis, to recreate functional tissues and their biomimetic models, for applications in regenerative medicine and personalized medicine. His scientific contributions have been recognized by >50 international, national, and regional awards.
Naiara Beraza
Naiara Bezara is a Group Leader at the Quadram Institute. She obtained her PhD in liver regeneration at the University of Navarra, Spain (2004), and subsequently obtained postdoctoral position at the Medical School Hannover and University Hospital Aachen, Germany (2004–2008). She continued her mechanistic research on metabolic liver disease during a Ramón y Cajal contract at CICBioGune, Spain (2009-2014). In 2015, she joined the Quadram Institute, where she established a research programme investigating host-microbe interactions along the gut–liver axis. From 2026, she is serving as the Food, Microbiome and Health Programme Lead at Quadram. Her work is supported by the BBSRC and MRC and has led to translational insights and patent filings in metabolic liver disease.
Emily Offer
Emily’s current role is Head of In Vitro Biology at Medicines Discovery Catapult, where she supports SMEs, academic groups, and drug discovery researchers in evaluating their drugs and technologies. Her team integrates complex cellular models with advanced analytical technologies to interrogate cellular mechanisms—from target engagement through phenotypic response—building translational evidence aligned to partners’ strategic objectives.
Emily has over 20 years of experience in cell and molecular biology within drug discovery. Her academic research focused on developing and validating stem cell–derived models of inflammation and immune disease. She has since led teams within global pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations, advancing cellular assay development for screening and phenotypic analysis of large and small molecule therapeutics, from target identification and validation through to candidate selection.
Prakash Ramachandran
Prakash is Clinician Scientist and Honorary Consultant Hepatologist and is based at the University of Edinburgh.
Liam Reed
Liam is a post-doctoral researcher at the 糖心原创.
Pranav Vasanthi Bathrinarayanan
Pranav Vasanthi Bathrinarayanan is a Research Fellow in the Immunology & Immuno-bioengineering group at the 糖心原创. He completed his MSc in Immunology (2013, 糖心原创) and his PhD in Biomedical Engineering (2019, Aston University), followed by a post-doctoral research fellow position at the University of Birmingham. His current research focuses on developing multi-organ-on-chip platforms involving liver, intestine and adipose tissue models to investigate metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease. He has presented his work at leading international conferences, including World Biomaterials Society (Daegu, 2024) and TERMIS (Seattle, 2024), and published in reputed journals such as APL Bioengineering, Frontiers in bioengineering and biotechnology. He has received several commercialisation grants including UKRI ICURe Discover and EPSRC IAA for applying advanced machine learning modalities to improve diagnosis of compartment syndromes.
Tina Patel
Tina is the Project Coordinator for MIMIC and is based at the 糖心原创. She has experience in supporting UKRI funded grants, research impact and working with an array of health research projects. She oversees research administration across MIMIC including research progress and finances.
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The project is co-funded by the MRC, Wellcome Trust and Innovate UK (Grant No: UKRI3162).
The funding was delivered in partnership with the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research.