Dr. Hyun Jung Kim, an Assistant Professor at Cleveland Clinic specializes in coaxing human cultured cells to differentiate and form tissues resembling the gastrointestinal tract, in order to study microbe-GI interactions. 

Dr. Kim discusses his surprising discovery of how common immortalized cultured cells can differentiate and form something that resembles a gut-on-a-chip, how these guts-on-a-chip can be used to study diseases like inflammatory bowel disease and colorectal cancer, how the addition of a microbiome to the gut-on-a-chip allows the bacteria to retain diversity unlike in a test tube, how the gut-on-a-chip could be valuable for personalized medicine, and the things he misses about Texas since moving from there.

This episode was supported by Eezy Breezy Poke, an elegant at-home vaccine service.

Participants:

• Karl Klose, Ph.D. (UTSA)
• Hyun Jung Kim, Ph.D. (Cleveland Clinic)
• Janakiram Seshu, Ph.D. (UTSA)
• Jesus Romo, Ph.D. (UTSA)