Dr. Soja Saghar Soman
Bioprinting the Future, How Deep Tech is Reimagining Human Health in the UAE
By Hafsa Qadeer
Dr. Soja Saghar Soman stands at the helm of a quiet revolution reshaping the nature of healing. As Founder and CEO of Z24 Bio, a biotechnology company operating across Abu Dhabi and New York, she leads a mission merging 3D bioprinting, microfluidics, and artificial intelligence to create a future where organs can be engineered, diseases modeled, and treatments personalized.
“While others looked to the stars,” she reflects, “I became fascinated by life itself, its intricate design and the mysteries of its evolution.” That fascination began during her childhood on the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) campus, where science was a living force. Surrounded by rocket launches and inspired scientists, young Soja absorbed a rare ethos: exploration, whether cosmic or cellular, is a human calling.
With twelve years of education in veterinary medicine, physiology, cell biology, and biotechnology, Dr. Soman built her foundation before joining New York University, where she bridged discovery and application in the emerging field of 3D bioprinting, where biology meets engineering and imagination meets precision.
When NYU Abu Dhabi established the region’s first 3D Bioprinting Research Laboratory in 2019, Dr. Soman led the team that bioprinted the UAE’s first human tissue structures, placing the nation on the global map of regenerative medicine. “Technology, when developed with purpose, transforms science into human impact,” she says. Her team’s success in bioprinting nerve tissues for transplantation proved that stem cells could be matured into living tissue capable of restoring damaged nerves.
At Z24 Bio, she now leads the creation of AI-integrated bioprinters, robotic systems that can fabricate custom tissue models on demand. Through a cloud-based interface, hospitals and researchers will soon be able to upload patient data and order personalized tissues printed using their own cells. “This is where medicine becomes personal,” she says. “We can print not just models, but possibilities.”
How close are we to printing a heart or kidney? Closer than ever, she insists. “We can already bioprint vascularized tissues like liver, skin, cartilage, bone, and nerve,” she explains. These tissues, though not yet transplantable, are revolutionizing how drugs are tested and diseases studied. Within the next decade, she predicts, small organ constructs such as the pancreas, thyroid, or cornea could enter clinical trials. “The next two to three decades,” she adds, “could see the realization of complete, functional organs. It’s not a dream, it’s a direction.”
Beyond bioprinting, her research explores microfluidics, a field replicating human organ systems on miniature chips. “When integrated with bioprinted tissues, we can mimic how an organ works, responds to drugs, or develops disease,” she explains. These “organ-on-chip” systems may one day replace much animal testing, offering ethical, human-relevant models. “When we can model a human system on a chip,” she says, “we can test treatments on a digital twin of the patient.”
The UAE, she believes, offers fertile ground for such frontier science. “The nation’s Vision 2031, its AI Strategy, and the HELM Cluster in life sciences are all steps toward a cohesive innovation ecosystem.” Its strength, she adds, lies in cross-disciplinary collaboration where innovation is deliberate and guided by visionary leadership.
Ethical reflection, she insists, must evolve with innovation. “At the heart of every breakthrough should be compassion,” she says. “We’re not just printing tissues, we’re restoring possibilities.” She advocates for frameworks ensuring transparency and safety, reminding her team that science must ask not only what we can create, but what we should.
As a mentor at NYU Abu Dhabi, Dr. Soman inspires students to see their work as part of the UAE’s wider narrative, a nation of builders, not just of cities, but of ideas. Through Z24 Bio, she mentors young scientists to link curiosity with compassion. “Innovation gains meaning when it serves humanity,” she says.
For Dr. Soman, innovation is measured not by patents or profits but by the lives it touches. “I see innovation as progress that uplifts humanity, where science meets conscience,” she reflects. From the labs of Abu Dhabi to the corridors of New York, her story is one of vision and virtue, a reminder that the next revolution in medicine will be led not by machines, but by minds that remember why we innovate at all.