Haylie Helms received a bachelors in Biology from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and a masters in Human Anatomy from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Before joining OHSU’s Biomedical Engineering PhD program, she managed the 3D Bioprinting Core Facility at the University of Minnesota, and also served as the Panoskaltsis-Mortari lab manager, taught a graduate level 3D Bioprinting course, and led several independent research projects.

Under the mentorship of Dr. Luiz Bertassoni, she is developing methods to single-cell bioprint complex tissues that match the native cellular spatial arrangement. Her research is currently focused on recreating the ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS) tumor microenvironment, with single-cell spatial precision, to investigate cell-cell interactions driving disease progression to invasive breast cancer. By systematically manipulating the cellular composition and arrangement of the tumor microenvironment they hope to uncover the fundamental biology of tumor initiation and progression.