News

Los Angeles, CA – October 2, 2026 - The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) has been awarded a contract worth up to $19.8 million under the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) PRINT program to lead a multi-institution effort to engineer transplantable, immune-compatible liver tissue. Dr. Xiling Shen, Principal Investigator and Acting Director, will lead the project, aimed at easing donor scarcity and the lifelong immunosuppression that transplant patients require today.

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Los Angeles, CA – September 28, 2026 -   The Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation has been awarded an NIH U01 research grant of approximately $6.9 million to develop a first-of-its-kind multimodal smart contact lens platform for monitoring post-traumatic stress disorder in real-world settings. The multi-institutional project brings together Principal Investigators Dr. Yangzhi Zhu of the Terasaki Institute, Dr. Nanthia Suthana of Duke University, and Dr. Ximin He of UCLA, combining complementary PTSD remains one of the most consequential and least objectively measurable neuropsychiatric conditions affecting individuals today. Current clinical tools depend on self-report and in-office assessment, which are unable to capture the real-time physiological and neural dynamics that drive the disorder. This gap represents a significant barrier to both scientific understanding and the development of more effective interventions. The NIH U01 award positions the Terasaki Institute to address that barrier directly, through a multimodal ocular bioelectronic platform designed for the complexity of daily human experience.

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Los Angeles, CA – September 23, 2026 -   A research team led by Dr. Yangzhi Zhu, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI), has developed a soft, reusable smart contact lens as part of its broader Ocular Library for the Analysis of Tear Biomarkers (OCULAB), a tear bioelectronics platform for noninvasive, longitudinal biochemical monitoring through the ocular surface and tear film. In this study, the platform was used to measure serotonin directly from tears as a proof-of-concept target for monitoring stress-related physiological changes. 

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Los Angeles, CA – September 21, 2026 - Dr. Johnson V. John, Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, has been awarded an NIH R01 grant to lead development of a next-generation, immunomodulatory wound dressing platform designed to accelerate healing in chronic wounds. Dr. John and his research team are tackling a persistent clinical challenge: chronic wounds that resist healing because they become locked in a prolonged inflammatory state.

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Los Angeles, CA – September 1, 2026 - Another summer at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation (TIBI) has come to a close, and with it, the 2026 Summer Internship Program. Kicking off on June 22 and continuing through mid-August, this year's cohort of 21 interns spent eight weeks of their summer immersed in biomedical research, entrepreneurial thinking, and scientific storytelling. 

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Wireless system continuously tracks pH, glucose, and lactate in perfusate and bile during donor liver preservation.

Los Angeles, CA – July 14, 2026 – More than 100,000 people in the United States are waiting for a lifesaving organ transplant. For patients in need of a liver transplant, determining whether a donor liver is healthy enough to transplant is a critical part of the process. Yangzhi Zhu, PhD, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation, and collaborators at Mayo Clinic in Arizona have developed a real-time biosensing platform designed to help answer that question during donor liver preservation. 

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Los Angeles, CA – June 22, 2026 –  Researchers at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation have developed an injectable hydrogel, a water-based gel material, made from silk proteins and a plant-derived compound. In laboratory tests, the material promoted complete wound closure within 72 hours, suggesting a potential new approach to minimally invasive soft tissue repair. 

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Los Angeles, CA – June 15, 2026 – Researchers from the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation  together with key pioneers in glioma biology, neuro-oncology, and stem cell biology, have published a comprehensive review in Society for Neuro-Oncology’s journal Neuro-Oncology outlining the evolving landscape of glioma organoid technologies and proposing a foundational classification framework to guide translational brain tumor research. 

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