Matthias Lütolf

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]

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]

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]

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]