Mark Miedel, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor at the Organ Pathobiology and Therapeutics Institute (OPTIn) and the Department of Pharmacology andChemical Biology at the University of Pittsburgh. I have a broad background in cell and molecular biology with specific expertise inliver microphysiological systems (MPS).My laboratory focuses on applying human biomimetic liver MPS to model both normal and disease-state physiology and to address clinically relevant questions in MASLD/MASH. My focus is on implementing the coupled use of liver MPS with quantitative systemspharmacology (QSP) as an integrated platform for identifying mechanisms and biomarkers of MASLD/MASH disease progressionand as a drug testing platform to inform precision medicine therapeutic strategies for drug discovery that can be applied to selectpatient cohorts using patient-derived primary and/or iPSC liver cells. This includes modeling the effects of high-risk genetic variants(e.g., PNPLA3), dietary factors such as fructose:glucose exposure, and their impact on therapeutic response. My team also leveragesadvanced technologies such as fluorescence-based imaging, proteomic and metabolomic profiling of MPS effluents, and 3Dbioprinting to build increasingly complex and reproducible liver models. I also have interest in utilizing liver MPS to examine theimpact of the liver tumor microenvironment on metastatic phenotypes that are associated with the progression of different cancer types(metastatic melanoma and breast cancer) as well as using 3D bioprinting technology to generate higher throughput liver MPS for largerdrug screening efforts.