“Both science and art require deep observation,” explains Dr. Ehsan Habibi. “To truly understand life, you have to capture it precisely — in all its dimensions.” As an artist, Dr. Ehsan Habibi paints lush forests, bubbling streams and shiny pebbles that are so realistic they could be mistaken for photographs. It’s called “hyper-realism” and it’s a philosophy that he applies to science just as much as to art.
“Both science and art require deep observation,” he explains. “To truly understand life, you have to capture it precisely — in all its dimensions.”
Dr. Habibi is deeply passionate about uncovering how multicellular systems are formed — how cells communicate, coordinate, and ultimately self-organize into complex structures.
In his lab, this means applying a multidisciplinary approach that weaves together stem cell biology, bioengineering and computational biology to build synthetic stem cell–derived models that capture key features of early development. By comparing these synthetic models with their natural counterparts, his lab is creating reference maps for the revolutionary new field of synthetic biology.
“By building detailed, multiscale atlases — integrating transcriptomics, imaging, and mechanics — we can better control the outcomes of stem cell systems and push the boundaries of regenerative medicine,” says Dr. Habibi.
Dr. Habibi’s sketch, titled Sketching Life, illustrates how his lab weaves together stem cell biology, bioengineering and computational biology.Before joining OHRI as a Scientist in the Regenerative Medicine Program, Dr. Habibi was a postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he co-led the generation of a comprehensive and detailed atlas of a critical region of the mouse brain, the cerebral cortex. This groundbreaking research is transforming our understanding of how the cerebral cortex develops and could lead to new treatments for devastating diseases. He also pioneered and developed a novel technology that, for the first time, enabled researchers to study the spatial transcriptome, cellular mechanics, and cellular geometry in 3D at single-cell resolution.
Dr. Habibi brings together scientific precision and artistic vision to shape the next generation of developmental models — with the goal of advancing cell therapy, disease modeling, and our fundamental understanding of early human development.
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