The Radisic Lab

Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada Research Chair in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering and a Senior Scientist at the Toronto General Research Institute. She is internationally renowned for shaping a new field of organ-on-a-chip engineering and developing new biomaterials that promote healing and attenuate scarring. She is Director of the NSERC CREATE Training Program in Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering & Entrepreneurship and Director of Ontario-Quebec Center for Organ-on-a-Chip Engineering. She co-founded the first collaboration centre between a university and the National Research Council of Canada, CRAFT, which is focused on translating organ-on-a-chip devices to viable products. She obtained B.Eng. from McMaster University, and Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the supervision of Prof. Robert Langer. She completed post-doctoral work at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Science and Technology.

Since joining the University of Toronto in 2005, Prof. Radisic has published over 260 articles, with over 16,000 citations with an h-index of 65. Her work is published in the most respected general science journals (e.g., Cell, Nature Methods, Nature Communications, PNAS, Science Advances) and in pre-eminent specialized journals (e.g. Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, Biomaterials, Lab-on-a-Chip). Her technology transfer activities provide undeniable evidence of the transformative impact of her discoveries, which have resulted in 40 pieces of IP, 4 licenses, and 2 companies (TARA and Quthero). The broad and significant impact of her pioneering contributions are additionally demonstrated by her 40 diverse awards (e.g., Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, Steacie Prize, Engineering Medal for Research & Development, YWCA Woman of Distinction Award), by an outstanding funding record (>$92 million in total grants raised) and through the training of 114 researchers, who have themselves won 160 awards. Prof. Radisic’s trainees are now professors at numerous universities in Canada and abroad: McMaster (Prof. Zhang), Toronto (Prof. Nunes), Montreal/CHU-St. Justine (Prof. Savoji), Dalhousie (Prof. Davenport Huyer), Sichuan (Prof. Xiao) and Teresaki Institute (Prof. Ahadian). They have also started companies while in her lab (uFluidix, Dr. Sofla; TARA, Dr. Zhao; Quthero; Mandla).

Before the age of 40, Prof. Radisic was recognized as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Engineering, two of Canada’s premier academies. She is also a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and a Biological Engineering, an honor reserved for the top 2% biomedical engineers in the world. For her pioneering contributions to shaping the new field of tissue engineering at the international level, she was recognized as a Fellow of the Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS). She was privileged to hold an NSERC E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2014–2016) and a Killam Research Fellowship (2020–2021), the most prestigious research fellowships in Canada.

Her international leadership in the field is further illustrated by her positions as an Associate Editor for ACS Biomaterials Science & Engineering, Senior Consulting Editor for the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology, and Reviewing Editor for eLife, and her membership on eight editorial boards for the top journals. She was also a co-chair of a prestigious 2017 Keystone Symposium, “Engineered Cells and Tissues as Platforms for Discovery and Therapy” and an organizer of a 2021 workshop on “Microphysiological Systems: Bridging Human and Animal Research” for USA National Academies. After serving as a member of the CIHR Biomedical Engineering Panel since 2008, Prof. Radisic was appointed a Scientific Officer of this panel in 2020. She served as an international reviewer for the Israeli Council for Higher Education on Biotechnology (2012–2013) and Biomedical Engineering (2016–2017). Prof. Radisic’s stature is further demonstrated by numerous Board of Directors positions in Canada (Ontario Society of Professional Engineers, McMaster Alumni Association, Canadian Biomaterials Society) and abroad (TERMIS) and university centres (TERC, Columbia University; ABM-CDT, University of Manchester). Her leadership is also evidenced by her position of Associate Chair – Research for the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry (2017–2020), which she left to hold the Killam Fellowship.