A collaboration between the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, the center will use stem cell engineering to uncover disease mechanisms and advance new therapies.

A stem cell is not only a biological mystery, but also an engineering challenge—a structure to shape, a system to measure, and a dataset to decode. To meet this challenge, USC is launching the new Center for Stem Cell Engineering, a collaboration between the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. Directed by biomedical engineer Megan McCain, the center will bring together biologists, engineers, and physicians to translate discoveries into therapies.

The center will focus on three core areas of technology development: cell engineering and synthetic biology; tissue engineering and microphysiological systems; and analysis of biological data with advanced computational tools, including machine learning and artificial intelligence. Initially, the center will use these technologies to identify disease mechanisms and guide new therapies for the cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and kidney systems, building on existing strengths at USC.

The center will also offer educational opportunities through coursework and co-mentorship for students and trainees with interdisciplinary interests.

“I envision the center as a one-stop shop for engineering advanced human tissue models, analyzing them, and leveraging them to identify new therapies and accelerate their translation,” said McCain, professor of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and biomedical engineering.

Close encounters

The center will occupy the third floor of the Doheny Building, across the street from the Eli and Edythe Broad CIRM Center for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Research at USC on the Health Sciences Campus (HSC). Renovations are underway, with a move-in date anticipated for summer 2026.

The floor will house five research labs, along with shared research facilities and equipment, including tissue culture rooms, a microfabrication space with 3D printers, laser cutters, and tools for synthesizing biomaterials, and computational space.

McCain’s lab—which engineers human tissues as disease models—will move from USC’s University Park Campus (UPC) to the new center. The lab has engineered several “organ on a chip” models by seeding living cells, including heart muscle cells, on patterned surfaces and devices manufactured using  a similar approach to how computer chips are manufactured.

“For me, the main motivation is to strengthen collaborations,” she said. “Some of the most impactful work from my lab is through collaboration with USC Stem Cell, which is based at HSC. Having a physical presence at HSC will strengthen collaborations between engineering and medicine, both for my lab and more broadly across USC. We would like to be closer to clinicians as well, so that we can benefit from their expertise and have easier access to patient-derived cells.”

For example, the McCain Lab is developing a “uterus on a chip” to study labor and screen for drugs to delay preterm birth. While USC OB-GYN Brendan Grubbs has been willing to provide uterine tissue from patients, it’s been a logistical challenge to transport the samples from HSC to UPC.

“To keep the cells alive, we need the transit time to be as short as possible,” said McCain. “If we are on the same campus, it will be significantly easier for us to engineer tissues directly from patient cells.”

Better together

The center plans to recruit four faculty members jointly through the Department of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Alfred E. Mann Department of Biomedical Engineering. Some recruits may also be affiliated with USC Viterbi’s new School of Advanced Computing, the hub of the University’s $1 billion-plus Frontiers of Computing initiative.

“We will prioritize hiring faculty who work at the interface between the two disciplines,” said McCain. “For example, it would be great to recruit someone with expertise in flexible electronics that could integrate electrodes into  some of the stem cell models that already exist at USC.”

Affiliated faculty include both Chuck Murry, Chair of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Peter Yingxiao Wang, Chair of Biomedical Engineering.

“You can’t have regenerative medicine without engineers,” said Murry. “The closer our projects get to the clinic, the more we rely on our engineering colleagues to move from technology to translation.”

Wang added, “Biomedical engineering is pure theory without biomedical applications, so it’s been a priority for me to strengthen our connections with the medical school. Keck School Dean Carolyn Meltzer and USC Viterbi Dean Yannis Yortsos have been wonderful partners in this effort.”

Other faculty affiliated with the new center hail from the two departments: stem cell scientists Leonardo Morsut, Nils Lindström, Zhongwei Li, and Giorgia Quadrato; and biomedical engineer Keyue Shen.

“We also hope to establish synergy with other initiatives across USC,” said McCain. “For example, one goal of the center is to build human preclinical models that can be used to test many types of therapies, including nanoparticles developed in the Transformative Center for Nanomedicine and Drug Delivery, led by biomedical engineer Eunji Chung.”

While the Center for Stem Cell Engineering will bring together stem cell biologists and engineers in formal ways such as multi-investigator grant submissions, collaborative research projects, retreats, and symposia, McCain suspects that informal interactions will drive the real convergence.

“For collaboration, the distance between UPC and HSC has been difficult from a practical sense—my students spend a lot of time going back and forth on the shuttle while carrying devices—but it’s also an intellectual barrier,” she said. “Our biomedical engineers need opportunities to bump into stem cell scientists and chat over lunch. That’s often how new ideas get generated and new collaborations form.”