Welcome to our new “Meet the team” blog series, where you’ll get a behind-the-scenes look at the incredible individuals who make our company thrive.
In this series, we’ll be diving deep into the lives and minds of our diverse staff members through a fun and engaging Q&A format. In each blog, we’ll spotlight a different team member, uncovering their unique journeys, professional insights, and personal passions. From the creative thinkers in our engineering department to the innovative minds in our scientific team. Without further ado!…
Before jetting off to Seattle to join other leading Microphysiological system (MPS) experts at this year’s MPS World Summit, we sat down with Dr. Dharaminder Singh, our Lead Engineer for Consumables. Read on to learn more about his role at CN Bio, what led him here, and most importantly, what ignited his passion for developing innovative new organ-on-a-chip (OOC) models.
If you’re also heading to the MPS World Summit next week, get in contact to schedule a time to meet with Dharaminder and our team – we’d love to see you there!
1. Can you tell us more about your career leading up to your role at CN Bio and what attracted you to the Company?
I’ve always been a problem solver, and this interest led me to do an undergraduate degree in Bioengineering. My undergrad course was quite multidisciplinary and touched on many topics, but the problem-solving element was always there. During my Masters in Bioengineering, we covered several different topics and areas of interest, which meant that I developed an understanding of a broad range of subjects. At times, these were not covered in great depth, but we had a good overview of each of the different areas, including organ chips and chip-based devices, something I quickly developed a keen interest in.
After finishing my Master’s degree I continued my education by embarking on a PhD in Bioengineering, moving more into applications of polymers and biomaterials. I developed novel formulations of a polymer, which was successfully utilized as scaffolds for applications such as nerve guidance conduits, embryonic stem cells, cartilage, and cancer models. I then worked in a few labs across Sheffield, including our core bioengineering labs, and at the Medical and Dental Schools.
Following the PhD, I came across an opportunity at CN Bio, which was well aligned with what I was looking for, because of the problem-solving nature of the role. CN Bio was a lot smaller back then so we had to bridge several different roles at any given time – something I felt very comfortable with owing to the multidisciplinary nature of my undergraduate degree. Because of my broad experience in chip devices, from engineering to biology, I could be both the end user and the engineer designing the products. That’s what really attracted me to the role!
2. How long have you been with CN Bio, and what do you enjoy most about your role?
I joined CN Bio in 2017, which seems an age ago now! The one thing I’ve enjoyed most is the number of different people we interact with, but of course, the company, our technology, and the broader problem we are trying to solve are all exciting too. I am passionate about Organ-on-a-Chip and New Alternate Methodologies (NAMs) in general and believe they will become a core focus for the Drug Discovery and Development industry.
In my role, I enjoy utilizing a broad range of the skills I’ve gained from past experiences and, of course, the opportunity to build upon them. There’s an engineering aspect to my job, so I interact daily with our engineers and also lead the consumables team, which is exciting. However, I am also involved with the biology side of our business. Having that understanding of biology and bioengineering is advantageous, as it means I can bridge the gap between the disciplines and answer the broad range of questions that arise. My current role also has a customer-facing element, where I engage with customers to address their queries. Essentially, I am involved in products from their initial conception to market delivery and beyond. I get to see a product through its entire life cycle, which I enjoy tremendously.
3. What are the greatest accomplishments you have made, since joining the company?
A major milestone for me was releasing our first PhysioMimix® OOC System into the market in 2018 – we were a significantly smaller team back then and it was a big achievement. It wasn’t just a personal victory but an enormous accomplishment within the company. Being part of the first product released was incredible!
Subsequently, we have launched several Multi-chip plates and consumables. Every new product we bring to the market still feels like a great accomplishment. I am particularly proud of the most recent ones, especially the PhysioMimix Multichip Liver-48 – our higher throughput plate, as I led the great team that developed this product and directly contributed. The PhysioMimix Liver-48 plate replicates the intricacy of our Liver-on-a-chip model in a higher throughput format. It enables a significantly higher number of experiments to be performed simultaneously compared to other microphysiological systems (MPS). The design also enhances the user experience/usability. Collectively, this is what makes this particular project especially special.
I am delighted to see how the CN Bio team has grown – the dynamics between individuals are outstanding – we grow, develop, and continue to learn together. We’re trying to push the boundaries of what people know, what we know, what the industry knows, and we are always working hard to stretch those limits. We listen to the market’s needs to develop solutions to support their demands – all of which is an accomplishment to be celebrated, in my opinion!
4. What does a day in your job look like and what is the focus of the work you do at CN Bio?
If I’m not careful, my day can be overrun with meetings! Thankfully, we work hard to ensure we don’t have a follow-on meeting culture here at CN Bio. I lead the consumable development team, and we always have multiple projects in progress at any given time. So, I’m likely to be in conversations with our technical teams, discussing the challenges and solving problems, or updating our stakeholders, asking them to weigh in on final decisions about product design.
Each project has internal and external stakeholders to ensure the projects and sub-tasks are where we want them to be. So, my role involves project management and stakeholder management. In terms of a breakdown, my role has reduced from being 80% technical to about 30 to 40% in the time I have been with the company. I am not in the lab often, but I do provide advice on tests and experiments when needed.
5. What first ignited your interest in bioengineering and organ-on-a-chip?
When I was younger, like many other prospective undergrads, I wanted to go into Medicine. While researching university courses, I came across a course in biomaterials and tissue engineering. Tissue engineering has a lot in common with what we do here at CN Bio now, but at that time it was still an emerging field. Not many universities were offering the course, which also piqued my interest. In addition, the fact that the course involved culturing and proliferating cells in the lab, nurturing them to function as they do in the body and then placing them back into the organism, really interested me. My undergraduate transitioned into a Master’s degree, then a PhD, during which I uncovered my passion for research.
The move to OOC from bioengineering was a slight step change because that wasn’t always my core focus. Although I had done some work with organ chips, most of my work was focused on tissue engineering, but again the emerging nature of OOC meant that when the opportunity for the change in direction came up, I jumped at it!
6. From an engineering perspective, what are the challenges to overcome when developing a new OOC model?
I think that’s a great question because the immediate response most people, including me, expect to hear is the technical side of things. For example, we need the design to function like this to ensure the biology works like that, which is 100% true, but frequently the usability aspect is forgotten. Here at CN Bio, we want to make sure that not only does the product work, but it works reliably and reproducibly, and that it’s simple enough for anyone with cell culture experience to use. Usability is therefore central to our product design.
My focus area is consumables, so the materials we use to make our devices, (including the coating chemistry), represent another challenge. Additionally, ensuring that we deliver a physiologically relevant flow of the media (to mimic the bloodstream) within our human organ models and between them in multi-organ systems represents a crucial element of PhysioMimix functionality. Fluidic flow enables shear stress, nutrient exchange, and oxygen transport, so, every part of the consumable’s design is vital to retain the viability and function of the organ model over extended culture times.
7. How important do you think close relationships with independent committees and regulatory bodies are to ensuring advancing NAMs research and awareness?
CN Bio is part of a few regulatory groups such as Critical Path Institute (C-Path), which is developing a framework within the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for MPS device use. In Europe, we are also part of the standardization work in CEN-CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization). In my opinion, being a part of these groups is important. We’re passionate about advancing NAMs, and being engaged in conversations with regulatory authorities helps propagate that message; on the other hand, it also enables us to understand how to continue advancing these technologies.
It’s also encouraging to see developments in the area of NAMs within government across the globe, such as the approval of the FDA Modernization Act 2.0, the UK announcing a £20 million budget for the 3Rs – Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement, and developments in other countries such as Canada and India, who are also pushing forward the NAMs agenda – which is exciting!
(I’m proud to be a member of the Animals in Science Committee but my comments here are not representing the ASC and any questions related to that should be sent to the ASC secretariat.)
8. This is an exciting time for the new alternative methodology (NAM) sector. What do you think the future holds for the use of animals in science, and new technologies such as OOC?
Yes, we’re seeing a lot of change within the NAM sector overall, and specifically within the MPS space. This is mainly because the models that are being developed are very context-of-use driven i.e., they are specifically designed to solve a particular research problem. This is a great development within the community – we’re providing solutions to industry-voiced problems, rather than providing solutions and then trying to fit the solution to the problem.
It is likely that animal use in science will remain for the immediate future. However, there are areas where OOC can be used to prevent unnecessary animal use, or even to safeguard animal use. The prior use of OOC to test for efficacy or toxicity ahead of in vivo studies can help narrow down the number of drugs/justify their progression into animals. ADME OOC studies can be utilized to refine dosage. Additionally, we are seeing a new wave of molecules with human-specific targets. Here animal use is less suited to their testing, so OOC offers a potential path forward where no other viable options exist.
The main development I expect to see in the future is a strong drive for standardization. Particularly now, as more people start to understand the potential benefits of OOC. While standardization is key for broad adoption and we need it to validate certain MPS models, the approach must maintain some balance. We don’t want strict standardization practices that stifle innovation and creativity. Many companies have adopted MPS to gain a competitive advantage, however, as the field progresses and MPS becomes a common experimental tool within more regulated aspects of the drug development workflow, their standardization will become more important.
Looking to the future, we anticipate that OOC data will become more common in regulatory submissions. The Drug Discovery and Development process is long but we’re making progress. At the end of 2023, we were delighted to announce that PhysioMimix data supported a successful regulatory submission for INI-822 targeting a fibrotic liver disorder. I expect you will see us achieve more and more milestones within the MPS space in the foreseeable future.