Conducting medical research can be challenging.  Just ask world-renowned bioengineering professor Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia. 

After years of failed experiments, trying to create an artificial liver, Dr. Sangeeta, a then-grad student at MIT, persevered. 

Full Frame: Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia – Pioneering the “microliver”

Conducting medical research can be challenging. Just ask world-renowned bioengineering professor Dr. Sangeeta Bhatia.

“The problem in the field has been that liver cells, when you take them out of the body, and you try to put them in a machine to use them, they quickly die,” explained Dr. Bhatia.

But, she worked hard to overcome the obstacles and her resilience paid off.  She pioneered a way to create “microlivers” that are sustainable outside the human body.

“It still took us about ten years to make a product out of it that we could share with the world,” said Dr. Bhatia.