01DERIVE
Derive
Human iPSCs are differentiated into endothelial cells, pericytes and cardiomyocytes. They're renewable, donor-matched, and free of animal tissue.
OPENRecruiting PhD students & a postdoc →
VIBES / Imperial College London · NHLI
Human vasculature, rebuilt on a chip.
The Ainscough Lab for Vascular Innovation and BioEngineered Systems engineers iPSC-derived microvascular and cardiac tissue on organ-on-chip platforms: living models that let us watch vascular disease unfold, and intervene, in human cells.
● Arterial inShear 12 dyn·cm⁻²37 °CVenous out ●
- iPSC differentiation
- Microfluidic fabrication
- Perfusable microvessels
- Cardiac organ-on-chip
- Live-cell confocal imaging
- Single-cell sequencing
- Quantitative image analysis
- Disease modelling
The premise
Most vascular biology is still read out in animals or flat dishes. We think the honest model of a human blood vessel is a human blood vessel: perfused, beating, and watched in real time.
Human
Every tissue starts as human iPSCs, so what we see is human biology, not a proxy for it.
Perfused
Vessels carry flow under physiological shear, because endothelium that never feels flow isn't really endothelium.
Animal-sparing
Models faithful enough to Reduce, Refine and Replace animal experiments where they serve patients poorly.
[ 01 / research ]
Engineering the microcirculation.
We bring together stem-cell biology, microfabrication and quantitative imaging to build human vascular tissue that behaves like the real thing, then use it to understand and treat disease. Four themes run through the work.
iPSC-EC · CD31Lumenised · 3D
Perfusable microvascular networks
Endothelial cells derived from human iPSCs will self-organise into three-dimensional, lumenised networks when given the right matrix and mechanical cues. We build these networks so they can be perfused end-to-end, then image them living.
That lets us measure barrier function, sprouting and remodelling as they happen, rather than inferring them from fixed endpoints.
Device · top view~1 Hz
Cardiac & vascular organ-on-chip
The heart and its vasculature don't work in isolation, so our chips don't separate them. We integrate beating iPSC-cardiomyocytes with vascular beds on a single device under controlled flow.
The result is a compact human system in which cardiac and endothelial cells signal to one another the way they do in tissue.
Read-out · illustrative
Organotypic disease modelling
With human tissue on-chip we can impose disease directly: oxygen deprivation and reperfusion, inflammatory challenge, the endothelial collapse of sepsis. Then we read out the response in the cells that matter.
The aim is models faithful enough to replace animal experiments for the questions they were never well suited to answer.
24 donors · 1 plateVariability → signal
Population-scale vascular biology
Two people with the same diagnosis can have very different vessels. By building networks from many donors in parallel, we turn person-to-person variability from noise into signal.
We ask which differences in vascular behaviour track with genetic background and clinical risk.
[ 02 / platform ]
From a single cell to a perfused vessel.
Each model we build follows the same four steps. Because every step is human-derived and measurable, a result on-chip can be traced back to the donor it came from.
02ASSEMBLE
Assemble
Inside microfluidic devices, cells self-organise in a 3D matrix into lumenised networks, guided by the mechanical and chemical cues we design.
03PERFUSE
Perfuse
Networks connect to flow, with arterial in and venous out, under physiological shear, so the endothelium matures the way it does in the body.
04MEASURE
Measure
Live confocal imaging, barrier assays and single-cell sequencing feed quantitative image analysis, which turns vessels into numbers we can model.
Techniques in the lab
[ 03 / people ]
The team.
A new lab building its founding team. We're cell biologists, engineers and computational people who want to build human tissue and ask hard questions with it.
PI · PORTRAIT
Principal Investigator
Dr Alex Ainscough
Alex leads the lab. Alex trained at Imperial College London (PhD) and the Wyss Institute at Harvard (postdoc), and brings a background in control theory and computer science to vascular tissue engineering, treating living systems as things that can be measured, modelled and re-engineered.
- Now
- Group Leader, National Heart & Lung Institute, Imperial College London
- Postdoc
- Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University
- PhD
- Imperial College London
Join the founding team
Backgrounds in cell biology, bioengineering, physics or computation are all welcome. Curiosity matters more than a perfect fit.
Open
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Lead a theme, from microvascular engineering to cardiac-on-chip.
Enquire OpenPhD Students
Funded and self-funded routes. Biology, engineering or computation.
Enquire OpenResearch Technician
Help build the lab's iPSC and microfabrication pipelines from day one.
Enquire RollingMSc & UROP Projects
Short, real projects with a path to authorship.
Enquire01 · RIGOUR
Measure, then believe
Quantitative read-outs, open methods, and controls we'd be happy to show a sceptic.
02 · CRAFT
Build the tools
If the right device or analysis doesn't exist yet, we make it, and we share it.
03 · CARE
People first
Mentorship, fair credit and a lab where everyone can do their best work.
[ 04 / outputs ]
Selected publications.
Papers, preprints and reviews from the lab and from Alex's earlier work. For the complete, up-to-date record, see Google Scholar.
2025 — 2026
Article
[Article title]
Ainscough A. J., [Author B], [Author C], … [Senior Author]
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Preprint
[Preprint title]
[Author A], Ainscough A. J., … [Senior Author]
bioRxiv · [Year]
EARLIER
Article
[First-author article title]
Ainscough A. J., …
[Journal] · [Year]
Review
[Review title]
[Authors], Ainscough A. J.
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No publications match that search.
[ 05 / news ]
From the lab.
Grants, papers, new people, talks and the occasional milestone.
Milestone2026
The Ainscough Lab opens at Imperial
VIBES launches as an independent group at the National Heart & Lung Institute, focused on human vascular and cardiac organ-on-chip models.
Read about the research →People2026
We're recruiting
PhD, postdoc and technician positions are open for the founding team.
See open roles →Funding[Mon YYYY]
[Grant or fellowship secured]
One line on the award and what it will support.
Paper[Mon YYYY]
[New publication headline]
A short, plain-language summary of the finding.
Publications →Talk[Mon YYYY]
[Presenting at conference]
Talk title and a link to slides or the abstract.
[ 06 / contact ]
Let's build something.
About joining, collaborating, or the science: email is the best way to start a conversation.
Prospective members
Students & postdocs
Send a CV and a short note on what draws you to the work. If there's a specific research theme you'd want to build on, tell us. It helps us reply well.
Partners
Collaborate
We work with clinicians, engineers and industry on human-relevant models for target discovery, safety and efficacy testing. Get in touch to explore a project.