Cell & Molecular Bioengineering

The molecular and cellular networks that compose cells and tissues fundamentally determine the emergent properties that shape the physiology of healthy organs and pathological tissues that cause diseases, like neurodegeneration and cancer. Their complexity requires novel and integrated approaches that span scales, ideas, and techniques. Pushing the boundary of knowledge in the direction of understanding molecular, cellular, and tissue systems will allow us to gain the insight required to build better therapies.

This program seeks to develop innovative approaches for treating disease by manipulating molecules, cells or systems. For example, diseases associated with misfolded proteins, such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s, could be treated by understanding and eventually modifying how proteins fold into their complex three-dimensional, functional configurations. A better understanding of most biological processes is likely to depend upon system-wide approaches at all levels.

Primary Faculty

Cory Berkland

Professor
Developing new therapeutics and biomaterials for improving human health

Jianmin Cui

Professor
Aims to design ultrasound protocols for drug & gene delivery

Yifan Dai

Assistant Professor
Decodes and encodes the physical chemistry of biological soft matter to understand biology and engineer precision medicine

Nathaniel Huebsch

Associate Professor
Focuses on basic & translational stem cell mechanobiology

Rohit Pappu

Professor
Uncovers the biophysical principles of intrinsically disordered proteins & their connection to cellular processes

Barani Raman

Professor
His lab's electronic nose technology has applications for homeland security

Jai Rudra

Associate Professor
Designs biomaterials for vaccine development and immunotherapy

Jin-Yu Shao

Professor
Works to further understand infectious & inflammatory diseases

Jonathan Silva

Professor
Creating better ways to treat cardiac arrhythmia

Michael Vahey

Assistant Professor
Uses imaging & microfluidics to understand infectious disease

Affiliate Faculty

Jennifer Alexander-Brett - Division of Pulmonary & Critical Care Medicine

Cell organoid models, animal model reporter systems, human biospecimen analysis, extracellular vesicle purification, quantitation, phenotypic analysis, multi-omics (proteomics, transcriptomics, lipidomics)

Ghazal Ashrafi, PhD - Biology and Physiology

Optical imaging, functional imaging, synaptic function, neurometabolism, mitochondria

Randall Bateman - Neurology

Diagnostic clinical test biochemistry mass spectrometry process robotics Alzheimer's disease neurodegeneration

Philip Bayly - Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

biomechanics, mechanobiology, cell motility, flagella, cilia, imaging

Carmen Bergom - Radiation Oncology

Radiation-induced cardiac toxicity, breast cancer, radiation therapy, MRI, genetic models, RNA-sequencing, pre-clinical models, image-guided radiation therapy, tumor microenvironment, lung cancer, vasculature, hypoxia, mitochondrial function, inflammation, cardio-oncology

Matthew Bersi, PhD - Mechanical Engineeing & Materials Science

Cardiovascular disease, fibrosis, inflammation, lymphocytes, soft tissue biomechanics, cell mechanics and mechanobiology, mathematical modeling

Michael Brent - Computer Science & Engineering

Bioinformatics and systems biology

Baron Chanda - Anesthesiology

Voltage and Ligand-gating, Pacemaking ion channels, single molecule spectroscopy, structural biology, cryo-EM, fluorescence imaging, Thermodynamic analysis

Barak Cohen - Genetics

Evolution of complex traits; synthetic biology for engineering gene expression

Meaghan Creed, PhD - Anesthesiology

Deep brain stimulation, Neuromodulation, Synaptic Plasticity, Addiction, Pain, Affect, Electrophysiology, Behavioral Analysis

David Curiel - Radiation Oncology

gene therapy, virus, vector, targeting

Gautam Dantas - Pathology & Immunology

antibiotic resistance, synthetic biology, bio energy, human microbiome, metagenomics, microbial ecology and biodiversity, probiotic engineering, pathogenomics

Daved Fremont - Division of Immunobiology, Dept of Pathology & Immunology

Structural biology, immunology, virology, host-pathogen interactions, protein engineering

Anthony French, PhD, MD - Pediatric Rheumatology

Human Immunology, Innate Immunity, Autoimmunity, Viral Immunity, NK cells, mathematical modeling, mouse models

Michael Gach - Radiation Oncology

MRI physics, quantitative imaging, quantitative hemodynamics, cancer, image processing, pulse sequences, real-time MRI

Guy Genin - Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Interfaces and adhesion in physiology and nature; optical strain analysis; continuum mechanics; viscoelasticity

Michael Greenberg - Biochemistry & Molecular Biophysics

heart failure, molecular motors, single molecule, optical trapping, stem cells, tissue engineering

Farshid Guilak - Orthopaedic Surgery

biomechanics, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, osteoarthritis, synthetic biology, stem cells, mechanobiology, mechanotransduction, cell mechanics

David Gutmann, MD - Neurology

Professor
Brain tumors, neurons, human induced pluripotent stem cells, genetically engineered mice, tumor modeling, organoids

Edward Han - Neuroscience

Two-photon calcium imaging, electrophysiology, virtual reality behavior, neuronal networks, learning and memory, hippocampus

James Huettner - Cell Biology & Physiology

glutamate receptors, chimeric subunits, in vitro differentiation, neural differentiation from stem cells

Jing Hughes - Department of Medicine

Islet biology, cilia, microscopy, physiology

Meredith Jackrel - Chemistry

Protein misfolding, amyloid, disaggregases, protein engineering, chaperones

Albert Kim, MD - Department of Neurological Surgery

Understanding the molecular mechanisms that drive tumor cell behavior in glioblastoma, a malignant brain cancer that is almost invariably fatal, as well as in aggressive forms of benign brain tumors, including meningiomas and pituitary tumors

Jin-Moo Lee, MD, PhD - Neurology

Stroke, Brain injury, Alzheimer's disease, Brain repair

Fangqiong Ling - EECE

Applies computational biology and microbiology tools to study microbiomes of the built environment.

Christopher Lingle - Anesthesiology Basic Science Research

ion channel biophysics, modeling of channel gating and cell excitability, methods of analysis

Christopher Maher - Medical Oncology

Genomics, Transcriptomics, Bioinformatics, Cancer Technologies, Computational Biology, non-coding RNA, Systems Biology

Audrey McAlinden - Orthopaedic Surgery

microRNAs, RNA nanotherapeutics, skeletal biology, heterotopic ossification, osteoarthritis, bone fracture

Gretchen Meyer - Physical Therapy

Skeletal Muscle Physiology, Adipose Signaling, Regeneration, Injury

Jeffrey Milbrandt, MD, PhD - Genetics

functional genomics, metabolic pathway, mitochondria, nerve regeneration, neurodegeneration, transcriptional networks

Jeffrey Millman - Internal Medicine - Endocrine/Metabolism

Pluripotent stem cells, diabetes, iPS cells, embryonic stem cells, differentiation, tissue engineering, metabolism, biomaterials

Robi Mitra - Genetics

Genomics. Genome Engineering. Computational Biology. Transcription Factors

Colin Nichols - Cell Biology & Physiology

Molecular aspects of potassium channels

Camillo Padoa-Schioppa - Neuroscience

Decision Making, Neurophysiology, Modeling, Primates

Hua Pan - Division of Rheumatology

Nanotechnology, MRI, Inflammation, Cardio-Oncology, Onco-nephrology, Cancer, Drug development

Amit Pathak - Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science

Cellular mechanics, mechanobiology of the cell

Philip Payne - Internal Medicine

Translational Bioinformatics, Multi-Scale Modelling, Computational Drug Repositioning

David Piston - Cell Biology & Physiology

Hormone secretion, signal transduction networks, protein-protein interactions, fluorescence microscopy

Maria Remedi

Diabetes, cardiovascular disease, brain dysfunction, Metabolism, Therapy, pancreatic beta-cells, neurons, cell identity, adipose tissue

Patricia Ribeiro Pereira - Radiology

Cancer, Membrane Trafficking, Antibody Engineerign, PET imaging, Radioimmunotherapy, Dynamic multimodal imaging, Tumor Microenvironment, Immune Cells

Janice Robertson - Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

membrane protein folding thermodynamics assembly single-molecule TIRF microscopy computational modeling structure function oligomerization lipids

Erica Scheller - Internal Medicine - Bone & Mineral Diseases

diabetes, fracture risk, advanced imaging, neurobiology, metabolic disease, bone regeneration, biosensors

Vijay Sharma - Radiology

Molecular Imaging, PET and SPECT Agents, Myocardial Perfusion, Alzheimer`s Disease, Multidrug Resistance

Monica Shokeen - Radiology

Contrast Agent Development, Nanoparticles, Cancer Imaging, Cardiovascular Imaging, Functional PET, MRI

Lilianna Solnica-Krezel - Developmental Biology

Gastrulation, Regeneration, Development, Biology Embryogenesis, Convergence, Extension, Forward and Reverse Genetics, Zebrafish

Alexander Stegh - Neurosurgery

Genetic program, pathogenesis of glioblastoma, brain tumor research

S. Joshua Swamidass, MD, PhD - Pathology & Immunology

machine learning, computational biology, chemical informatics, bioinformatics, neural networks, pharmacology, drug toxicity, drug design

Tony Tsai - Developmental Biology

Assistant Professor
Mechanochemical control mechanisms underlying robustness of embryo development

Pamela Woodard, MD - Radiology

PET, MRI, Molecular Imaging, Cardiac Imaging, Translational Research, PET tracers, Atherosclerosis

Hani Zaher - Biology

Ribosome, Translation, Quality Control, mRNA modifications, Aptamers, RNA biology

Mohamed Zayed - Surgery

peripheral vascular disease, arteriovenous implants for treatment of diabetes, venous thrombectomy device treating DVT

Fuzhong Zhang - Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering

Synthetic biology, Protein-based materials, Metabolic engineering