The Caliari Lab at the University of Virginia

The Caliari Lab is based in the Departments of Chemical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Virginia. We engineer biomaterials to better understand the dynamic reciprocity between cells and their microenvironment. We apply these platforms to address fundamental human health challenges including:

  • Treatment of fibrotic diseases
  • Repair and replacement of musculoskeletal tissues

Life is constantly evolving and happening in three dimensions, and yet most of what we know about how cells interact with their environment comes from work on flat and hard surfaces that do a poor job of recapitulating the architecture, mechanics, and biologics of tissues and organs. We believe that the development of dynamic biomaterial tools that re-create the heterogeneous microenvironments of physiological and pathological conditions is essential to addressing challenges facing modern medicine.