The prestigious life sciences magazine, The Scientist, recently named Assistant Professor Milica Radisic of the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering (IBBME) and the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE) as the “Scientist to Watch” for her research involving engineered cardiac tissue called the “heart patch.”

The idea for the heart patch first came to Radisic while working with rat stem cells as a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She applied an electric impulse to an individual cardiomyocyte and marveled at the results. Wondering if the same electric impulse would cause a group of cells to contract like a functioning heart, Radisic devised a system to supply oxygen to engineered cardiac tissue, and then applied electric stimulation. Eight days later, the culture of cells aligned and beat rhythmically like mature cardiac tissue.

Radisic is now applying the patch to cardiomycotes from human embryonic stem cells to make new tissue. She is also studying the patch’s ability to test new drugs and cell lines.

Highly respected by colleagues, Milica Radisic has earned an esteemed reputation as an innovative leader in her field and is known to be a great collaborator. At the age of 33, she has already made significant contributions to biomedical research, while at the same time raising a young family. She describes both her life in the lab and at home as very intense, but complementary.