Sangeeta N. Bhatia (born June 24, 1968) is an American inventor, professor, and entrepreneur who holds both medical and engineering training. She holds multiple appointments and directs substantial research programs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts She is reported to be the first woman physician-scientist to be elected to all five of the United States' National Academies.
Current Appointments and Affiliations At MIT, Bhatia is the John J. and Dorothy Wilson Professor at both the Institute for Medical Engineering & Science (IMES) and the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science (EECS). She serves as the Director of the Marble Center for Cancer Nanomedicine at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her affiliations also extend to being an Institute Member of the Broad Institute and an Associate Faculty at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. Beyond her research and academic roles, Bhatia is the Founding Director of the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative. This initiative is dedicated to increasing the representation of MIT faculty members, particularly women, who launch biotechnology companies, addressing a significant gender gap in biotech entrepreneurship. Bhatia has been a member of Brown University's board of trustees since 2015, serving as a fellow since 2019 and as chair of academic affairs currently. She serves on the board of directors at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she chairs the science and technology committee. She has presented on the application of engineering approaches to medical problems at events including the World Economic Forum, TED, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Grand Challenges, and the Cancer Moonshot.
Research and Impact Bhatia leverages miniaturization tools drawn from the computer industry to drive medical innovation. Her groundbreaking work has broad applications in cancer, liver, and infectious diseases, leading to significant advancements in early disease detection, human disease modeling, tissue regeneration, cell transplantation, and the development of cancer therapeutics. Bhatia's laboratory, the Laboratory for Multiscale Regenerative Technologies (LMRT), operates at the interface of living and synthetic systems, engineering micro and nanotechnologies to tackle complex human health challenges.
Liver Disease Bhatia's doctoral work laid the foundation for keeping liver cells functional outside the human body. By adapting techniques from computer chip design and photolithography, she microfabricated substrates that support the growth and function of 2D and 3D human liver cells in a lab dish. This led to the invention of the "microliver," a miniature model organ that revolutionized the efficient testing of drug reactions. It is now used globally by companies to evaluate drug efficacy and predict toxic side effects. Further research in her lab, including the use of 3D printing to create synthetic vascular systems, aims to develop larger tissue structures with the ultimate goal of an artificial human liver. This foundational work was among the first at MIT in the area of biological micro-electromechanical systems (Bio-MEMS). The LMRT continues to apply micro- and nanotechnology to tissue repair and regeneration, studying the interactions between hepatocytes (liver cells) and their microenvironment. This work improves cellular therapies for liver disease, maximizes hepatocyte function, and enhances the understanding of liver physiology and pathophysiology. Her research has been instrumental in studying diseases like hepatitis and malaria. In collaboration with Christopher Chen at Boston University, Bhatia's lab developed human microlivers that can be transplanted, vascularized, and survive in vivo, offering potential curative therapies for both heritable and acquired liver diseases.
Cancer and Infectious Diseases A significant area of LMRT's work involves developing nanomaterials as tools for biological studies and as multifunctional agents for cancer therapies. This includes designing nanoparticles and nanoporous materials that can home in on tumors, signal cellular changes, enhance imaging, or deliver therapeutic components. Early work in 2002, with Erkki Ruoslahti, involved developing phage-derived peptide-targeted nanomaterials for in vivo tumor targeting. More recently, Bhatia, in collaboration with Erkki Ruoslahti and Michael Sailor, has explored engineering beneficial probiotics to detect or treat cancer cells. For over a decade, LMRT has pioneered new technologies in activity-based diagnostics. This includes designing nanosensors with biological molecules, such as peptide barcodes, that can signal the presence of diseases like cancer when interacting with aberrantly active enzymes (proteases) in diseased tissue. These specialized nanoparticles allow for detection via simple tests on urine similar to an at-home pregnancy test, breath, or blood samples. This platform has expanded to detect 12 diseases, including 6 cancer types. Nanosensors can be administered via inhalation, intramuscular injection, and even ingested in the form of probiotic bacteria. The LMRT is also exploring breath-based diagnostics for rapid results and has developed diagnostic tools that use DNA barcodes and CRISPR technology, making cancer diagnostics more affordable and accessible for low- and middle-resource settings.
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