Faculty

Chemical and biological engineering, soft condensed matter, biomechanics and biopolymers.

Biomolecular and metabolic engineering; cell-cell communication; heterologous protein expression; device/bio interfaces.

Biomedical optical imaging, optical coherence tomography (OCT), multi-photon Microsopy (MPM), diffuse optical spectroscopy and imaging, molecular imaging, early cancer diagnosis, neuroimaging.

Nanodiagnostics, nanotherapeutics, complex biological fluids & interfaces, lung diseases

Biophysics, molecular interactions, gene-metabolite relationships in medicinal plants, molecular basis for plant disease resistance, plant metabolic engineering for improved biofuel production.

Biomedical engineering; synthesis of novel hydrolytically degradable; implantable polymers; study and use of biomaterials for the delivery of therapeutics; scaffolds for orthopaedic tissue engineering applications; interaction of biomaterials and tissues

Micro/nanotechnology, cancer theranostics, and tissue regeneration

BioMEMS; microfluidic systems for bioanalytical assays; heat and mass transfer in bioengineering

Photodynamic Therapy; Photoimmunotherapy; Cancer; Photoactivatable Nanotechnology; Drug Delivery; Mechanism-based Combination Therapy; Photothermal Therapy.

Biotherapeutics, extracellular vesicles (exosomes), drug delivery, protein engineering, biomanufacturing, cell therapy.

Vaccine design and immunotherapy, biomaterial interactions with the immune system, autoimmunity, polyelectrolyte multilayers, nanotechnology, polymer and lipid-based drug carriers.

Bioengineering, instrumentation, transport processes, modeling, exercise physiology, respiratory stress.


Protein folding, misfolding and aggregation; allosteric regulation of proteins; biological transport; biomolecular recognition; role of water in biology; multiscale simulation methods.

Bioenvironmental and water resources engineering, numerical methods in environmental biodynamics, transport modeling, information and decision support systems.

Mechanisms of endocytic vesicular transport: their role in physiology and disease, and their translational application for the controlled delivery of nano-scale therapeutics to precise targets at the sub-cellular level (targeting, intracellular drug delivery, endocytosis, cell culture, animal models, pharmacokinetics, microscope imaging).

Nanobiotechnology, biofabrication (construction using biological materials and mechanisms), stimuli-responsive biopolymers (e.g., chitosan and alginate), enzymes (e.g., tyrosinase and microbial transglutaminase), electroaddressing, renewable resources.


Control of micro-scale systems, fluid dynamics, biochemicals.

Quantitative cell mechanobiology; biomechanics; microfluidic devices for modeling physiological systems; nano/microtechnology; live cell imaging

Bioengineering, bioimaging, machine vision; food processing engineering safety, food safety and quality, biomaterial inspection, sensors and bioinstrumentation, robotics, automation.

Disease detection, optical biosensors, ring resonators, SERS, lab-on-a-chip.

Single and multi-joint intelligent rehabilitation robotics to diagnose, treat and evaluate neurological disorders and musculoskeletal injuries, investigate reflex/non-reflex and dynamic/static factors contributing to impaired motor control, and study injury and compensation mechanisms of pathological knee conditions.


Breast imaging, dose and image quality in CT and cardiovascular imaging, diagnostic ultrasound, medical displays.


Multidisciplinary efforts directed at understanding virus biology and its role in disease as well as studies aimed at engineering viruses and other biological components for application in nano-based systems and devices.


MEMS and microfluidic systems, including the development of tools capable of probing biological systems at the molecular level and multi-scale integration of nanostructured surfaces and components within microfluidic systems; self-assembly and other in situ fabrication methods.

Investigating the mechanisms behind and manipulation of MRI contrast; optimizing MRI data acquisition and analysis to achieve optimum sensitivity, resolution, reliability, and accuracy; development of MRI techniques for the measurements of structural anatomy, tissue metabolism, tissue perfusion, and the spatial distribution of brain activity.

Theranostic nanoparticles for pediatric cancers and inflammatory diseases; bacteria-powered tools and devices for medicine.

Active flow control, sensor and actuator design, magnetostrictive materials, material characterization, smart fabrics and textiles, vibrations and acoustics

Quantitative biophotonics methodologies and associated instrumentation, quantitative characterization of tissue, preclinical studies on fluorescence imaging of HER2–positive breast cancer, fluorescence lifetime imaging, multispectral imaging, structural and functional brain imaging.

Design and development of microfabrication technologies and processes in micro/nano/bio devices and systems for chemical and biological sensing, small- scale energy conversion and harvesting with a strong emphasis toward healthcare applications.

Light-tissue interactions and laser safety in medical devices, optical biosensing and biomaging technology for safety and performance evaluation in biophotonics and nanobiophotonics, surface contamination of medical devices.


DNA structure and topology in multi-protein DNA complexes and DNA loops, construction of nanoscale objects using DNA and protein-DNA complexes, DNA packaging by peptides used for transfection of DNA and siRNA, role of DNA structure in transcription and gene regulation.

Development and plasticity of the brain, in particular how periods of learning and plasticity are initiated and controlled; development of the central auditory and visual system in particular on the role of early cortical circuits in brain wiring.

Protein engineering, biomolecular recognition, fungal disease.

Hyperspectral and multispectral imaging technologies to assess safety and quality of agricultural produce and animal carcasses. Development of rapid on-line inspection systems and portable devices using multispectral laser-induced fluorescence and multispectral reflectance imaging technologies.


Polymer hydrogels for biomimetic recognition of viruses; self-assembled polymer nanoarchitectures for flexible batteries and antennas; haemostatic materials.

Calcium channels, calcium sparks, heart failure.


Organic/inorganic hybrid structures and interfaces, bioconjugation chemistry. Energy transfer with nanoparticles. Enzyme activity at nanoparticle interfaces, nanoparticle bioapplications

Influence of ion channels on information coding at the membrane, cellular, circuit/organ, and whole animal levels; identifying mechanisms for the generation of biological rhythms in excitability, using the brain’s circadian clock and cardiac pacing as model systems.

Mechanical durability of orthopaedic spinal devices and cardiovascular stents, implant interaction with surrounding tissues, corrosion, micro-CT imaging, finite element analysis.

Biophotonic technologies for in vivo cancer detection and tissue monitoring, including UV/Vis/NIR reflectance and fluorescence spectroscopy, hyperspectral imaging, endoscopy, optical coherence tomography, and photoacoustic imaging; also computational modeling, tissue-simulating phantoms for performance testing and optical-thermal light-tissue interactions.

Development of molecular dynamics techniques; in silico design of stimuli-responsive nanomaterials; mechanisms of biological pumps and channels.


