Matthias Lütolf

Professor
Matthias Lütolf
Lutolf Portrait
Born1973 (age 51–52)
CitizenshipSwiss
EducationMaterials engineering
Biomedical engineering
Alma materETH Zurich
Stanford University
Known forBiomaterials
stem cell biology
Organoid models
Scientific career
FieldsStem Cells
Biomaterials
Tissue Engineering
Microfluidics
Single-Cell Analysis
High-Throughput Screening
InstitutionsEPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)
ThesisCell-responsive synthetic hydrogels (2002)
Doctoral advisorJeffrey Hubbell
Websitewww.epfl.ch/labs/lutolf-lab/

Matthias Lutolf (born in 1973, also known as Matthias Lütolf) is a bio-engineer and a professor at EPFL (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne)/[1][2][3][4] In 2021, he became the Scientific Director for Roche's[5] Institute for Translation Bioengineering in Basel.[6]

Education

Lutolf studied materials engineering at ETH Zurich where he graduated in 1998. In 2002, he received his PhD in biomedical engineering from ETH Zurich for his studies on cell-responsive hydrogels for tissue engineering and cell culture, in the group of Jeffrey Hubbell.[7][8]

Career

He completed postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Helen Blau at Stanford University, where he worked on novel cell culture approaches for blood and muscle stem cells, so called synthetic niches.[9][10] In 2007, he founded his own laboratory at EPFL, where he was promoted to associate professor in 2014 and full professor in 2018.[1] From 2014 to 2018, he was director of EPFL's Institute of Bioengineering.[11] In June 2021, Lutolf became scientific director of the newly established Roche Institute for Translational Bioengineering in Basel, Switzerland.[12]

Following the launch of Roche's Institute of Human Biology (IHB) in May 2023,[5] he became its Founding Director, where he also heads the Translational Bioengineering core and leads the Multi-Tissue Systems Engineering laboratory.[6]

Research

Lütolf has made contributions at the interface of biomaterials, stem cell biology, and organoid technology. Early in his career, he was a key contributor to the invention and commercialization of novel synthetic extracellular matrices and hydrogels that enable in situ tissue engineering, promoting regeneration directly in vivo, with publications in PNAS (2003), Advanced Materials (2003), and Nature Biotechnology (2003, 2005).[1] Lutolf's laboratory develops in vitro organoids mimicking healthy and diseased tissues and organs.[2][13][14][15][16][17]

Lütolf's laboratory has also pioneered designer matrices for organoid culture, including the first chemically defined systems that support robust and reproducible growth of intestinal and other stem cell–derived organoids.[18]

Expanding this work, his team has invented strategies for engineering organoids, integrating bioengineering principles to guide stem cell differentiation and tissue organization, yielding models with enhanced reproducibility and physiological fidelity.[19] More recently, Lütolf has led efforts to create next-generation cancer organoid models, including “mini-colon” systems that reproduce tumour initiation, progression, and microenvironmental interactions, described in Nature Biotechnology (2024),[20] Nature (2024),[20] and Nature Materials (2022).[21]

Awards and honors

In 2007, Lutolf received the European Young Investigator (EURYI) Award by the European Science Foundation.[22] Since 2018, he is elected as member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO).[23] He serves as associate editor of The Company of Biologists' journal Development.[24]

Publications

References

  1. ^ a b c "13 new professors appointed at ETH Zurich and EPFL | ETH-Board". www.ethrat.ch. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  2. ^ a b "Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering - EPFL". www.epfl.ch. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  3. ^ "Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering – ISIC". www.epfl.ch. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  4. ^ "Laboratory of Stem Cell Bioengineering - EPFL". www.epfl.ch. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  5. ^ a b "Roche launches Institute of Human Biology to accelerate breakthroughs in R&D by unlocking the potential of human model systems". www.roche.com. Retrieved 2025-10-16.
  6. ^ a b "Translational Bioengineering". IHB. Retrieved 2025-10-16.
  7. ^ Lütolf, Matthias (2002). Cell-responsive synthetic hydrogels (Doctoral Thesis thesis). ETH Zurich.
  8. ^ Lutolf, Matthias P.; Weber, Franz E.; Schmoekel, Hugo G.; Schense, Jason C.; Kohler, Thomas; Müller, Ralph; Hubbell, Jeffrey A. (May 2003). "Repair of bone defects using synthetic mimetics of collagenous extracellular matrices". Nature Biotechnology. 21 (5): 513–518. doi:10.1038/nbt818. ISSN 1087-0156. PMID 12704396. S2CID 7144594.
  9. ^ Lutolf, Matthias P.; Gilbert, Penney M.; Blau, Helen M. (November 2009). "Designing materials to direct stem-cell fate". Nature. 462 (7272): 433–441. Bibcode:2009Natur.462..433L. doi:10.1038/nature08602. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 2908011. PMID 19940913.
  10. ^ Gilbert, P. M.; Havenstrite, K. L.; Magnusson, K. E. G.; Sacco, A.; Leonardi, N. A.; Kraft, P.; Nguyen, N. K.; Thrun, S.; Lutolf, M. P.; Blau, H. M. (2010-08-27). "Substrate Elasticity Regulates Skeletal Muscle Stem Cell Self-Renewal in Culture". Science. 329 (5995): 1078–1081. Bibcode:2010Sci...329.1078G. doi:10.1126/science.1191035. ISSN 0036-8075. PMC 2929271. PMID 20647425.
  11. ^ Bhagwat, V. M.; Ramachandran, B. V. (1975-09-15). "Malathion A and B esterases of mouse liver-I". Biochemical Pharmacology. 24 (18): 1713–1717. doi:10.1016/0006-2952(75)90011-8. ISSN 0006-2952. PMID 14.
  12. ^ "The Roche Institute for Translational Bioengineering". www.roche.com. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  13. ^ Caiazzo, Massimiliano; Okawa, Yuya; Ranga, Adrian; Piersigilli, Alessandra; Tabata, Yoji; Lutolf, Matthias P. (March 2016). "Defined three-dimensional microenvironments boost induction of pluripotency". Nature Materials. 15 (3): 344–352. Bibcode:2016NatMa..15..344C. doi:10.1038/nmat4536. ISSN 1476-4660. PMID 26752655.
  14. ^ Gobaa, Samy; Hoehnel, Sylke; Roccio, Marta; Negro, Andrea; Kobel, Stefan; Lutolf, Matthias P. (November 2011). "Artificial niche microarrays for probing single stem cell fate in high throughput". Nature Methods. 8 (11): 949–955. doi:10.1038/nmeth.1732. ISSN 1548-7105. PMID 21983923. S2CID 310516.
  15. ^ Ranga, A.; Gobaa, S.; Okawa, Y.; Mosiewicz, K.; Negro, A.; Lutolf, M. P. (2014-07-14). "3D niche microarrays for systems-level analyses of cell fate". Nature Communications. 5 (1): 4324. Bibcode:2014NatCo...5.4324R. doi:10.1038/ncomms5324. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 4104440. PMID 25027775.
  16. ^ Brandenberg, Nathalie; Hoehnel, Sylke; Kuttler, Fabien; Homicsko, Krisztian; Ceroni, Camilla; Ringel, Till; Gjorevski, Nikolce; Schwank, Gerald; Coukos, George; Turcatti, Gerardo; Lutolf, Matthias P. (September 2020). "High-throughput automated organoid culture via stem-cell aggregation in microcavity arrays". Nature Biomedical Engineering. 4 (9): 863–874. doi:10.1038/s41551-020-0565-2. ISSN 2157-846X. PMID 32514094. S2CID 219543643.
  17. ^ Brassard, Jonathan A.; Nikolaev, Mike; Hübscher, Tania; Hofer, Moritz; Lutolf, Matthias P. (January 2021). "Recapitulating macro-scale tissue self-organization through organoid bioprinting". Nature Materials. 20 (1): 22–29. Bibcode:2021NatMa..20...22B. doi:10.1038/s41563-020-00803-5. ISSN 1476-4660. PMID 32958879. S2CID 221825383.
  18. ^ Gjorevski, Nikolce; Sachs, Norman; Manfrin, Andrea; Giger, Sonja; Bragina, Maiia E.; Ordóñez-Morán, Paloma; Clevers, Hans; Lutolf, Matthias P. (2016-11-24). "Designer matrices for intestinal stem cell and organoid culture". Nature. 539 (7630): 560–564. doi:10.1038/nature20168. ISSN 1476-4687. PMID 27851739.
  19. ^ Mitrofanova, Olga; Nikolaev, Mikhail; Xu, Quan; Broguiere, Nicolas; Cubela, Irineja; Camp, J. Gray; Bscheider, Michael; Lutolf, Matthias P. (2024-08-01). "Bioengineered human colon organoids with in vivo-like cellular complexity and function". Cell Stem Cell. 31 (8): 1175–1186.e7. doi:10.1016/j.stem.2024.05.007. ISSN 1934-5909. PMID 38876106.
  20. ^ a b Lorenzo-Martín, L. Francisco; Hübscher, Tania; Bowler, Amber D.; Broguiere, Nicolas; Langer, Jakob; Tillard, Lucie; Nikolaev, Mikhail; Radtke, Freddy; Lutolf, Matthias P. (2024). "Spatiotemporally resolved colorectal oncogenesis in mini-colons ex vivo". Nature. 629 (8011): 450–457. Bibcode:2024Natur.629..450L. doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07330-2. ISSN 1476-4687. PMC 11078756.
  21. ^ Chrisnandy, Antonius; Blondel, Delphine; Rezakhani, Saba; Broguiere, Nicolas; Lutolf, Matthias P. (2022). "Synthetic dynamic hydrogels promote degradation-independent in vitro organogenesis". Nature Materials. 21 (4): 479–487. Bibcode:2022NatMa..21..479C. doi:10.1038/s41563-021-01136-7. ISSN 1476-4660. PMID 34782747.
  22. ^ "2007 : European Science Foundation". archives.esf.org. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  23. ^ "Find people in the EMBO Communities". people.embo.org. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  24. ^ "Editors and Board | Development | The Company of Biologists | Development | The Company of Biologists". journals.biologists.com. Retrieved 2021-08-20.
  25. ^ Raeber, G.P.; Lutolf, M.P.; Hubbell, J.A. (2005). "Molecularly Engineered PEG Hydrogels: A Novel Model System for Proteolytically Mediated Cell Migration". Biophysical Journal. 89 (2): 1374–1388. Bibcode:2005BpJ....89.1374R. doi:10.1529/biophysj.104.050682. PMC 1366622. PMID 15923238.
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