Bioengineering

How can biological systems be mimicked or manipulated? Labs focused on bioinspired design take inspiration from the natural world to design novel tools, materials, and technologies. Biomaterials engineering labs aim to create novel materials that mimic biological materials or environments. These materials are used to create novel medical devices and treatments, or to improve in vitro models of biological systems. Synthetic biology researchers use their knowledge of fundamental biological concepts to engineer biological systems that perform novel functions or create new organisms. 

Featured Research

Modeling the collective behavior of FG-Nups in the NPC by dynamic DNA nanopores

Eason Cao ‘26

he/him

Cell Biology (C. Lin Lab)

Learn more about Eason's research
Left: Eason working in the lab; Right: Diagram of DNA origami structure with FG-Nups

Expanding spider silk properties by incorporation of nonstandard amino acids

Maisha Prome ‘27

she/her

Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology (Isaacs Lab)

Learn more about Maisha's research
Left: Maisha in the lab; Right: Spider silk

Faculty

  • Stuart Campbell

    Associate Professor; Biomedical Engineering & Cellular and Molecular Physiology
    • Bioengineering
    • Computational Biology
    Research Interests: Understanding mechanisms that underlie genetics forms of heart disease using computational and experimental tools and approaches.

  • Jay Humphrey

    Professor; Biomedical Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Computational Biology
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    Research Interests: ascular mechanics; mechanobiology; design of tissue engineering constructs; computational modeling of vascular development, homeostasis, and disease

  • Farren Isaacs

    Professor; Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research Interests: Synthetic Biology, Genome Engineering, Systems Biology, Bioengineering, Engineered biomaterials & RNAs

  • Jaehong Kim

    Professor; Chemical & Environmental Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    Research Interests: Antimicrobial/biocidal surface development and application of nanomaterials for water treatment

  • Chenxiang Lin

    Associate Professor; Cell Biology and Biomedical Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    Research Interests: DNA nanotechnology enabled molecular tools and biomimetic systems

  • Nikhil Malvankar

    Associate Professor; Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +3 more
    Research Interests: We are developing electronic Imaging & Control of Microbial Functions, by studying how environmentally and clinically important microbes build & use hair-like “nanowires” to export electrons outside their cell body, during respiration, communication, and pathogenesis and by tuning nanowire conductivity using light, pressure, temperature, electromagnetic fields, and non-natural ‘click’ chemistry.

  • Kirstin Meyer

    Assistant Professor; Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: We seek to understand molecular mechanisms of emergent gene regulatory behavior, with a focus on temporal information transmission, mechanosensing, and chromatin biophysics.

  • Kathryn Miller-Jensen

    Associate Professor; Biomedical Engineering and Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Systems Biology
    Research Interests: HIV latency; signaling pathways; high-throughput single cell analysis; computational, experimental and systems-level approaches

  • Andrew Miranker

    Professor; Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry and Chemical & Environmental Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    Research Interests: Protein self-assembly; protein folding and dynamics; amyloid

  • Michael Murrell

    Associate Professor; Biomedical Engineering and Physics
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Non-equilibrium thermodynamics, active matter, biophysics, synthetic biology, cytoskeletal mechanics.

  • Richard Prum

    Professor; Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    Research Interests: Avian feather evolution; structural color; avian color vision; avian phylogenetics and behavioral evolution

  • Edward Stites

    Associate Professor; Laboratory Medicine & Pathology
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research Interests: mathematical modeling, informed machine learning, cancer biology/disease biology, systems biology, synthetic biology

  • Xiaolei Su

    Assistant Professor; Cell Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Imaging Biological Systems
    • +1 more
    Research Interests: Membranes, phase separation, and regulation of immune signaling; single molecule imaging and cell engineering

  • John Tsang

    Professor; Immunobiology and Biomedical Engineering
    • Bioengineering
    • Bioinformatics
    • Biological Circuits
    • +2 more
    Research Interests: Systems and quantitative immunology; human immunology; single cell biology; predicting and modeling immune responses; synthetic immunology: predictive engineering of immune cell trafficking and sensing; immune homeostasis maintenance and set point establishment mechanisms; integrating dynamical modeling and machine learning to understand emergent immune system behavior across temporal and spatial scales.

  • Madhusudhan Venkadesan

    Associate Professor; Mechanical Engineering & Materials Science
    • Bioengineering
    • Computational Biology
    • Properties, Structure, Composition of Biological Systems
    Research Interests: biomechanics and control of animal movement; muscle rheology and biophysics; inverse problems in elasticity and morphoelasticity.

  • Jing Yan

    Assistant Professor, Molecular, Cellular & Developmental Biology
    • Bioengineering
    • Biological Circuits
    • Computational Biology
    • +3 more
    Research Interests: Imaging and modeling the developmental process of bacterial communities, characterizing and understanding the soft matter properties of bacterial biofilms, designing new bioinspired materials and surfaces