Dr. Milica Radisic is a Professor at the University of Toronto, Canada Research Chair in Functional Cardiovascular Tissue 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. form the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under 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).
