Faculty

Faculty

Department Faculty

Shelly Peyton

Professor and Chair of Biomedical Engineering

Alessandra Balduini

Research Associate Professor

regulation, environment and pathology of megakarocytes to platelets

Lauren Black III

Associate Professor

cardiovascular tissue engineering, dynamic tissue mechanics and visualization, computational modeling, myocardial infarction, tissue engineering, regenerative medicine, cardiogenesis

Barbara Brodsky

Research Professor

biophysics, collagen, protein structure

Ying Chen

Research Assistant Professor

tissue engineering, regenerative tissue applications

Yu-Ting Dingle

Sergio Fantini

Biomedical optics, diffuse optical imaging, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, quantitative tissue oximetry.

Vincent Fitzpatrick

Research Assistant Professor

Corey Fucetola

Research Assistant Professor

Juan Gnecco

Assistant Professor

reproductive biology and tissue engineering to understand the immune-endocrine mechanisms driving both reproductive physiology and disease pathogenesis.

Giulia Guidetti

Research Assistant Professor

natural photonics, structural colors, bio-inspired photonics, biomaterials

Nisha Iyer

Assistant Professor

stem cells, neural tissue engineering, organoids, disease modeling, spinal cord injury, biomanufacturing

David Kaplan

Distinguished Professor, Stern Family Professor of Engineering

biopolymer engineering, biomaterials, material science, tissue engineering, bioengineering, cellular agriculture

Janet Krevolin

Professor of the Practice

medical device design and development

Angela Lai

Assistant Teaching Professor

Medical Device Design, Biomedical Engineering, Engineering Education, Thrombosis, Blood-material Interactions

Chunmei Li

Research Assistant Professor

biomaterials for hard tissue regeneration, biophysical control of macrophage polarization

Marco Lo Presti

Research Assistant Professor

Ying Luo

Research Associate Professor

Biomaterials, Regenerative Medicine, Drug Delivery

Srivalleesha Mallidi

Assistant Professor

Ultrasound imaging, photoacoustic imaging, multi-modality imaging, image-guided surgery and therapeutics, nano drug delivery systems

Fiorenzo Omenetto

Frank C. Doble Professor

ultrafast nonlinear optics, nanophotonics, biopolymer multifunctional materials, material science, photonic crystals, photonic crystal fibers

Madeleine Oudin

Associate Professor and Tiampo Family Fellow

cancer biology, tumor microenvironment, mechanisms of metastasis and drug resistance

Jugal Sahoo

Research Assistant Professor

Silk chemistry and biomedical materials design, Biopolymers, Hydrogels

Angelo Sassaroli

Research Assistant Professor

near-infrared spectroscopy, diffuse optical tomography

Brian Timko

Associate Professor

nanoelectronics, biosensing, biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug delivery

Qiaobing Xu

biomaterials, drug delivery, micro/nanofabrication, tissue engineering

Zhongfeng Ye

Research Assistant Professor

Zheng Zhang

Professor of the Practice

medical devices, new product development, biomaterials, polymer chemistry, analytical chemistry

Secondary Appointments

Bree Aldridge

Tuberculosis remains a threat to global health, killing ~2 million people every year. The causative agent of tuberculosis, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is thought to infect one-third of the world's population, sickening ~10 million people a year. Despite efforts to simplify treatment strategies, tuberculosis still requires months of multi-drug therapy to cure. Our research focuses on designing optimized therapies for TB using cell biology and engineering approaches. Our lab is a multidisciplinary research team, integrating quantitative measurement with computational modeling and analysis to create intuitive descriptions of complex cell biology. We focus our studies on (1) characterizing single-cell determinants of mycobacterial drug tolerance, (2) understanding how growth heterogeneity is controlled, and (3) engineering combination therapy.

Luis Dorfmann

Mathematical models of material behavior; Nonlinear magneto- and electromechanical interactions; Biomechanics of soft materials; Rubber elasticity and inelasticity

Jonathan Garlick

Pedram Hamrah

Dendritic cells found in the eye with special emphasis on the function of these cells in corneal transplantation, neurotrophic keratitis, and herpetic keratitis Clinical trials that use confocal microscopy in various types of infectious keratitis and dry eye disease

Carl Kirker-Head

Professor, Marilyn M. Simpson Chair in Equine Medicine

Orthopedics: Bone and cartilage growth and remodeling, repair in response to injury, and grafting. Skeletal tissue engineering. Bone and soft tissue biomechanics. Bone inductive and mitotic proteins. Ligament and tendon physiology and response to injury. Orthopedic device development. Animal models of orthopedic disease. Equine podiatry. Joint disease and interventions. Cardiovascular: Percutaneous treatment of cardiac disease. Animal models of cardiac disease. Interventional cardiology.

Krishna Kumar

Robinson Professor of Chemistry

Bioorganic Chemistry and Chemical Biology The research interests of the Kumar laboratory are centered on the (1) use of chemistry to design molecules to interrogate and illuminate fundamental mechanisms in biology, or be used as therapeutics; and (2) use of biology to "evolve" and "select" molecules that can perform chemistry in non-biological and medicinal settings. These are some questions we are trying to answer: (i) Is it possible to design and mimic natural proteins and other biological macromolecules by use of building blocks that nature does not use – and whether such constructs can be endowed with properties that are not found in biology?; (ii) How did the first enzymes arise in the imagined Darwin's pond – is there a way to recreate this scenario and in the process develop a fundamentally new method to create enzymes?; (iii) Biology uses phase separation, that is, clustering of different compounds in confined locations – a process that is key in orchestrating the daily activities of a cell – can we find methods that can predictably dictate where molecules are located in a given environment and thereby direct the phenotype that is generated?; (iv) Can we rationally design small molecules and peptides that can function against antibiotic resistant bacteria that are threatening the most basic tenet of modern medicine?

Michael Levin

Vannevar Bush Professor

Morphological and behavioral information processing in living systems

Eric Miller

Statistical- and physics-based signal and image modeling and processing, tomographic image formation and object characterization, and inverse problems. Applications explored include human performance assessment, materials science, airport security, medical imaging, environmental monitoring and remediation, unexploded ordnance remediation, and automatic target detection and classification.

Gili Naveh

Associate Professor

Structure and function of the periodontal ligament Bone biology Tooth movement Extracellular matrix Biomechanics 3D Imaging MicroCT Raman

Thomas Schnelldorfer

Igor Sokolov

Engineering for Health -> Physics of cancer and aging -> Mechanics of biomaterials at the nanoscale, Synthesis and study of functionals nanomaterials for biomedical imaging and drug delivery, Advanced imaging for medical diagnostics, Novel processes and materials for dentistry: nano-polishing and self-healing materials

Sameer Sonkusale

Bioelectronics, Biomedical microdevices, Wearables, Ingestibles, Biomedical circuits and systems, micro and nano fabrication, lab-on-chip microsystems, global health and precision medicine, CMOS image sensors for scientific imaging, analog to information converters, analog computing, brain inspired machine learning, active metamaterial devices, circuits, and systems, terahertz devices and circuits

Barry Trimmer

Henry Bromfield Pearson Professor of Natural Science

Currently we are pursuing the following major projects: Current Projects 1) Modulation of Nociception. — The ability to sense and respond to harmful events (nociception) is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and in many animals results in a longer lasting sensation called pain. Nociception is a distinct sensory modality that promotes the avoidance of damaging interactions using molecular mechanisms that are well-conserved from single cell organisms to humans. Nociception typically elicits strong responses, such as aggressive or avoidance movements, but these must be chosen appropriately and enhanced (hyperalgesia) or suppressed (hypoalgesia), depending on the circumstances. Our laboratory uses an insect, the tobacco hornworm Manduca sexta, as a model system to study the neurobiology of nociception and its modulation. 2) Neuromechanics of Locomotion — Animal locomotion is an intricate interplay between neural processes and biomechanics. These components have co-evolved to form "neuromechanical" control systems in which neural commands organize actions and the structures and materials of the body translate these commands into movements. In some cases structures are able to accomplish movements with relatively little or no command input, but most behaviors in natural environments require intricate neural patterning. In animals that have stiff skeletons (such as vertebrates and adult stage arthropods), these motor programs rely on the constraints imposed by joints to reduce the degrees of freedom and simplify control. In contrast to animals with skeletons, soft animals do not have the same limits on movements; they can deform in complex ways and have virtually unlimited degrees of freedom. One of our major research goals is to identify how soft animals control their movements in a computationally efficient manner using the principles of embodiment and morphological computation. 3) SoftWorm Robots — a soft machine development platform — Based on extensive neuromechanical studies of soft bodied locomotion in animals, we have developed a family of actuated modules that are being used as development platforms for soft robots. These robots are about 10-15 cm long and weigh between 4g and 30g. Earlier designs were fabricated by vacuum casting silicone elastomers into 3D-printed molds, our current methods include printing the devices in a soft rubbery polymer using a multi-material 3D printer. These devices are actuated with shape-memory alloy (SMA) microcoils that can be controlled with current pulses. We have also constructed similar robots with back-drivable Maxon motors coupled to the body using flexible "tendons". The body shapes can be changed to any desired form, but most of our current prototypes resemble caterpillars or worms. They can crawl, inch or roll and even climb steep inclines. 4) Tissue Engineering of Novel Devices — One of our long-term goals is to "grow" robotic devices using a combination of biosynthetic materials, cellular modulation, and tissue engineering. In collaboration with Professors Kaplan and Levin we are exploring both invertebrate and vertebrate cell culture and regeneration systems to structure muscles and supporting tissues on scaffolds of biomaterials. These scaffolds could be degradable or allowed to remain as part of an operational biorobot. Such biological devices will be controlled using the simulation tools developed for synthetic soft robots and will exploit recent advances in soft material electronics. For these cell-based systems, we are generating bundles of contractile skeletal muscle tissue using insect muscle cells. These constructs will be engineered to contract in a controlled, coordinated fashion for eventual use as motors in soft robots. Insect cells offer novel features, such as high force, low oxygen demand, and low sterility requirements that are particularly advantageous. This work is also being applied in the field of Cellular Agriculture to develop sustainable ethical food production.

James Van Deventer

Associate Professor

Synthetic Biology, Chemical Biology, Protein Engineering, Antibody Engineering, Drug Discovery, Genetic Code Expansion, Noncanonical Amino Acids, Tumor Microenvironment.

Pamela Yelick

Research in my laboratory focuses on mineralized tissue development, homeostasis, disease and regeneration. Our research models include the zebrafish, Danio rerio, mammalian models including pig, mouse and rat, human healthy and diseased tissues, and 2 and 3-dimensionional (3D) in vitro and in vivo tissue engineering models for human cartilage, bone and tooth tissue engineering.

Part-time Lecturers

Anthony Barry

Part-time Lecturer

Drug Delivery and Controlled Release Technologies Pharmaceutical Development Pharmaceutical Formulations Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics Bioprocessing Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Technologies

Amanda Baryshyan

Part-time Lecturer

Monir Ejemel

Part-time Lecturer

Xiao Kuang

Part-time Lecturer

Niall Lennon

Part-time Lecturer

molecular biology, cell biology, nano biotechnology, genomics

Bernardo Perez-Ramirez

Part-time Lecturer

Drug product development for therapeutic proteins. Application of biophysical and thermodynamic approaches to formulation development. Physical and chemical stability of proteins, ligand binding and linkage. Drug-device integration.

Affiliate Faculty

Gianluca Farinola

Adjunct Professor

Shelley Fried

Adjunct Associate Professor

Irene Georgakoudi

Adjunct Professor

label-free high resolution tissue imaging, non-linear microscopy, metabolic imaging, matrix characterization, in vivo flow cytometry, cancer detection, osteoarthritis, neurodegenerative diseases

Chiara Ghezzi

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Dense collagen based tubular tissue models for airway tissue engineering

Bastien Guerin

Adjunct Assistant Professor

magnetic resonance imaging, electromagnetic modeling, RF and gradient coil design

James Harden

Adjunct Associate Professor

biomolecular assemblies, biomaterials, computational biophysics, cell mechanics, complex fluids

Samuel Lin

Adjunct Associate Professor

Lorenz Meinel

Adjunct Professor

Drug delivery interfaces

Nicolas Rouleau

Adjunct Assistant Professor

Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic

Adjunct Professor

transport phenomena, tissue engineering and bioreactors

Emeriti

Mark Cronin-Golomb

Professor Emeritus

optical instrumentation, atomic force microscopy, nonlinear optics, biomedical optics, optical tweezers, biocompatible optical materials

Van Vo

Associate Professor Emeritus