School of Engineering
Showing 451-500 of 558 Results
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James Swartz
James H. Clark Professor in the School of Engineering and Professor of Chemical Engineering and of Bioengineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsProgram Overview
The world we enjoy, including the oxygen we breathe, has been beneficially created by biological systems. Consequently, we believe that innovative biotechnologies can also serve to help correct a natural world that non-natural technologies have pushed out of balance. We must work together to provide a sustainable world system capable of equitably improving the lives of over 10 billion people.
Toward that objective, our program focuses on human health as well as planet health. To address particularly difficult challenges, we seek to synergistically combine: 1) the design and evolution of complex protein-based nanoparticles and enzymatic systems with 2) innovative, uniquely capable cell-free production technologies.
To advance human health we focus on: a) achieving the 120 year-old dream of producing “magic bullets”; smart nanoparticles that deliver therapeutics or genetic therapies only to specific cells in our bodies; b) precisely designing and efficiently producing vaccines that mimic viruses to stimulate safe and protective immune responses; and c) providing a rapid point-of-care liquid biopsy that will count and harvest circulating tumor cells.
To address planet health we are pursuing biotechnologies to: a) inexpensively use atmospheric CO2 to produce commodity biochemicals as the basis for a new carbon negative chemical industry, and b) mitigate the intermittency challenges of photovoltaic and wind produced electricity by producing hydrogen either from biomass sugars or directly from sunlight.
More than 25 years ago, Professor Swartz began his pioneering work to develop cell-free biotechnologies. The new ability to precisely focus biological systems toward efficiently addressing new, “non-natural” objectives has proven tremendously useful as we seek to address the crucial and very difficult challenges listed above. Another critical feature of the program is the courage (or naivete) to approach important objectives that require the development and integration of several necessary-but- not-sufficient technology advances. -
Paul Täufer
Graduate Visiting Researcher Student, Bioengineering-GRVR
BioPaul is a graduate physics student from Germany interested in research at the intersection of biology, medicine, engineering, and physics.
At Stanford, he is researching the biophysics of immune cells, focusing on NETosis, a process by which certain immune cells, particularly neutrophils, release extracellular traps (NETs) composed of DNA, histones, antimicrobial and cytotoxic proteins to capture and neutralize pathogens. This process plays a crucial role in the immune system's defense against infections but can also damage the host and correlate with the worsening of chronic inflammatory diseases. In particular, Paul investigates how membrane fluidity impacts membrane tension and the downstream cellular process of NETosis. He ultimately aims to comprehensively characterize NETosis and its influence on plasma membrane biophysics, shedding light on the underlying mechanisms of immune response. -
Sindy Tang
Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and Professor, by courtesy, of Radiology and of Bioengineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsThe long-term goal of Dr. Tang's research program is to harness mass transport in microfluidic systems to accelerate precision medicine and material design for a future with better health and environmental sustainability.
Current research areas include: (I) Physics of droplets in microfluidic systems, (II) Interfacial mass transport and self-assembly, and (III) Applications in food allergy, single-cell wound repair, and the bottom-up construction of synthetic cell and tissues in close collaboration with clinicians and biochemists at the Stanford School of Medicine, UCSF, and University of Michigan.
For details see https://web.stanford.edu/group/tanglab/ -
Hawa Racine Thiam
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and of Microbiology and Immunology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsCellular Biophysical Mechanisms of Innate Immune Cells Functions
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Ross Daniel Venook
Senior Lecturer of Bioengineering
BioRoss is a Senior Lecturer in the Bioengineering department and he is the Associate Director for Engineering at the Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign.
Ross primarily co-leads undergraduate laboratory courses at Stanford—an instrumentation lab (BIOE123) and an open-ended capstone design lab sequence (BIOE141A/B)—and he supports other courses and runs hands-on workshops in the areas of prototyping and systems engineering related to medical device innovation. He enjoys the unique challenges and constraints offered by biomedical engineering projects, and he delights in the opportunity for collaborative learning in a problem-solving environment.
An Electrical Engineer by training (Stanford BS, MS, PhD), Ross’ graduate work focused on building and applying new types of MRI hardware for interventional and device-related uses. Following a Biodesign Innovation fellowship, Ross helped to start the MRI safety program at Boston Scientific Neuromodulation, where he worked for 15 years to enable safe MRI access for patients with implanted medical devices--including collaboration across the MRI safety community to create and improve international standards. -
Bo Wang
Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and, by courtesy, Developmental Biology
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsResearch interests:
(1) Systems biology of whole-body regeneration
(2) Cell type evolution through the lens of single-cell multiomic sequencing analysis
(3) Quantitative biology of brain regeneration
(4) Regeneration of animal-algal photosymbiotic systems -
Paul J. Wang, MD
John R. and Ai Giak L. Singleton Director, Professor of Medicine (Cardiovascular Medicine) and, by courtesy, of Bioengineering
Current Research and Scholarly InterestsDr. Wang's research centers on the development of innovative approaches to the treatment of arrhythmias, including more effective catheter ablation techniques, more reliable implantable devices, and less invasive treatments. Dr. Wang's clinical research interests include atrial fibrillation, ventricular tachycardia, syncope, and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Dr. Wang is committed to addressing disparities in care and is actively involved in increasing diversity in clinical trials.
