Rodrigo Somoza Palacios, PhD

I am a Research Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Case Western Reserve University, where I direct the Skeletal Research Center as well as cell manufacturing technology and research development at the Center of Modular Manufacturing of Structural Tissues. I have extensive expertise in the fields of regenerative medicine, tissue engineering, and cellular therapies. My research interests include mesenchymal stem cells, tissue engineering of cartilage, bone, muscle and skin, biosensor development, cancer metastasis, and pain. I have 20+ years of previous experience in stem cell biology. I have worked on the design and implementation of engineered cartilage and skin applications and cell therapy. For more than a decade, I have studied the role of MSCs (as perivascular cells) on cancer metastasis to bone. For this, my colleagues and I have developed animal models and in vitro assays to study the mechanisms of bone metastasis that are mediated by MSCs. I have developed skills in stem cell culture and differentiation, molecular biology, 3D culture strategies, bioprinting, animal models, biosensor design and implementation, pain biology and high-throughput data analysis. I have been working in novel approaches for cartilage repair and regeneration for more than a decade, focusing on adapting induced pluripotent cell technology to modulate the chondrogenic phenotype of MSCs. I’m developing more dynamic methodologies of differentiation and optimized imaging and reporter technologies to track differentiation molecular events. In addition, this work has led to the development of novel biosensor technologies that can be applied during the tissue engineering manufacturing process of not only cartilage, but other tissues as well. These new developments are now focused on the adaptation of CRISPRCas and aptamer technologies. Recently I have become very interested on the role of MSCs controlling pain. I’m using state-of-the-art technologies to study and identify molecules that MSCs produce that bind and activate opioid receptors.