ChE 2026 Spring Seminar Series – Victor Rivera-Llabres, PhD

Details

Speaker: Victor Rivera-Llabres, PhD
Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Talk title: Leveraging engineered biomaterials to investigate material mediated migration, remodeling, and regulation of hematopoiesis

Abstract: Biomaterials are widely used in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine, with applications spanning drug delivery, tissue substitutes, stem cell expansion, and disease modeling. As understanding of cell-material interactions advances, increasing control over the spatial and temporal properties of biomaterials is required. Granular hydrogels, composed of individual hydrogel microparticles, offer enhanced modularity and emergent rheological properties arising from particle assembly. While these systems have demonstrated significant potential for tissue engineering, structure-property relationships have largely been limited to porosity or rheological behavior as a function of microgel size or packing density. Consequently, little is known about how the underlying molecular parameters of the microgel building blocks—such as molecular weight, crosslink density, polymer architecture, or interparticle interactions—govern the mechanics of assembled granular systems. Establishing these relationships would enable the rational, bottom-up design of granular hydrogels with tailored properties.

Hematopoiesis is the lifelong process by which hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) generate all blood and immune cells. Diseases such as myelomas, leukemias, and lymphomas disrupt this process and often require myeloablative therapies, which deplete the system of HSCs, making HSC transplantation essential for hematopoietic reconstitution. HSC fate decisions, including quiescence, self-renewal, and differentiation take place in, and are regulated by, unique bone marrow niches. HSCs can be rigorously identified and functionally validated. Extensive work has identified myriads of extracellular matrices, biomolecular, or metabolic (e.g., hypoxia) cues that induce functional shifts in HSC activity. Yet while the marrow is known to change substantially across the lifespan, studies of the influence of niche remodeling on HSC behavior remain poorly understood. Remodeling is responsible for both long-term (e.g., ageing) and short-term (e.g., paracrine/autocrine signaling) shifts in the microenvironment.

This presentation will highlight recent efforts to establish structure-property-function relationships in granular hydrogels and apply these materials as in vitro platforms to study HSC activity and niche-driven regulation.

Biosketch: Dr. Victor Rivera-Llabres joined the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a postdoctoral associate in 2025. He is also a member of the Carl Woese Institute for Genomic Biology – Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering Core group. Dr. Rivera-Llabres earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico – Mayaguez in 2019. He went on to receive his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2024, where he worked under the guidance of Dr. Carlos Rinaldi-Ramos developing micropatterned hydrogels and magnetic microparticles for tissue engineering and biomedical imaging applications, respectively. While at UF, Dr. Rivera-Llabres received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2020. He commenced postdoctoral studies at UIUC and is currently working on developing granular biomaterial models of the bone marrow to study stem cell mediated remodeling of tissues, structure-function-property relationships, and ageing of hematopoiesis. Victor is interested in leading an interdisciplinary research laboratory focused on the development, characterization, and translation of engineered biomaterial models to inform therapies for hematopoietic stem cell transplants and as potential disease treatments.