Dr. Shabir Hassan is the Director of ShabLab and Zebrafish Avatar Lab at Khalifa University (KU). Before joining KU, he was an Early Career Investigator at Harvard Medical School and Associate Bioengineer at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, USA. His main focus of research has been devising in vitro platforms of diseases such as cancer and different tissues for drug discovery and drug delivery applications. Additionally, his interest revolves around 3D bioprinting of disease models to study genetic and rare diseases. He has an immense interest in bioimaging platforms such as mini-optical tomographic systems for studying 3D in vitro lab models.
He has won many awards for his academic and research excellence. Some notable ones include Certificate of Merit for academic excellence from University of Kashmir, Department of Biotechnology Fellowship from the Government of India, Endeavour Award from the Australian Government, two consecutive awards in Early and Advanced Mobility grant categories from the Swiss National Science Foundation for his scientific endeavors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard Medical School, Excellence in Mentorship from Harvard Medical School/BWH, Best Oral Presentation Award (SYIS) from the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society Asia-Pacific Chapter Conference, held in Hong Kong, Excellence in Research from Yonsei University, and the BRICS Excellence Award 2025 for Promoting Research and Education across borders and cultures.
He has published more than 75 research papers in international journals of repute. His developed mini microscope was recognized as one of the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Hot Paper. He has also been instrumental for innovations in fabricating 3D self-oxygenating artificial tissues for implants in volumetric tissue losses and has delivered numerous talks including one as a resource person for the innovations in frugal imagers studying in vitro disease models at the Ramon Cajal painting exhibition in MIT museum in 2018.
Dr. Hassan serves as an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Biomaterials Science. He served as Founding Associate Editor for MIT Science Policy Review (MIT, USA) in 2020. Additionally, he edits special issues for Polymers (MDPI), Frontiers in Pharmacology, etc.
Organ-on-a-chip systems and imaging technologies: Development of organ-on-a-chip platforms and their respective imaging modalities for miniaturized and portable volumetric imaging systems for organ-on-a-chip platforms.
Biomaterials for wound healing and therapeutic applications: Development of various biomaterial-based platforms that can be adapted to address various challenges in wound-healing biology and therapeutic approaches targeted at specific medical conditions. This research domain involves studies developing porous hydrogels that have the tendency to improve cellular invasion, thus showing better neovasculogenesis and enhanced healing abilities. Techniques involved include synthesis, sol-gel methods, sacrificial bioprinting, and encapsulation to develop therapeutic systems that have applications in wound biology and targeted therapy.
Microfabrication approaches for tissue engineering applications: Development of various microfabrication techniques that help to engineer the shape of cell-containing hydrogels or topographic cues of scaffolds for creating 2D and 3D functional tissue constructs. The techniques used range from 3D printing and sacrificial bioprinting to develop microfluidic systems for organ-on-a-chip devices.
Personal Website: www.shabirhassan.com
Selected Publications: (*: Co-first; ^: Corresponding Author; Cover: Journal Cover Story)
Selected Awards and Honors
Best Student Award, UG studies in Kashmir University, India
University topper, undergrad, Kashmir University
Department of Biotechnology (India) fellowship for 2 years of masters
Endeavour Award (Australia) (not activated for LSZGS offer from Switzerland)
Life Sciences Zurich Graduate School (LSZGS) graduate Fellowship at ETH/UZH Zurich
Chemical and Molecular Sciences Zurich Fellowship at UZH Zurich
SNSF Early mobility postdoctoral fellowship from Switzerland
Chair at 4th Annual Workshop on Micro and Nanotechnologies in Medicine at HMS
Chair at 5th Annual Workshop on Micro and Nanotechnologies in Medicine at HMS
SNSF Advanced grant from Switzerland
Excellence in Mentorship Award from BWH, Harvard Medical School
Best Oral Presentation Award (SYIS), TERMIS-AP.
Invited to deliver a talk at 5th International Conference on Emerging Advanced Nanomaterials (ICEAN 2024) in Australia.
Invited to deliver a talk and chair a session at TERMIS World Congress in Seattle, USA.
Program Chair for 3rd UAE Anatomy and Cell Biology Conference to be held at KU.
Invited talk at NanoBiomed Conference held at University of Barcelona, Spain.
Invited Presentations (selected from >40 talks)
Self-funded research assistants, postdocs, and visiting professors can directly mail. We have research openings in the fields of biomaterials, microfluidics, and 3D bioprinting.
