Cell and tissue engineering centers on the application of physical and engineering principles to understand and control cell and tissue behavior. Cellular engineering focuses on cell-level phenomena, while tissue engineering and regenerative medicine seek to generate or stimulate new tissue for disease treatment.
Two areas in which the department has established special leadership are cellular mechanobiology, which focuses on understanding the interaction and conversion between force-based and biochemical information in living systems, and stem cell engineering, which includes platforms to expand, implant, and mobilize stem cells for tissue repair and replacement.
Faculty working in cell & tissue engineering:
Adam Arkin
Dean A. Richard Newton Memorial Professor, Bioengineering;
Senior Faculty Scientist, Environmental Genomics and Systems Biology Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory;
Director, Center for the Utilization of Bioengineering in Space;
CEO/CSO, DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase
PI and Co-Director, ENIGMA SFA
The Arkin Lab focus is how microbes transform, clean, and improve soils, soils that are currently degrading due to climate change, pollution, and poor water use. Near close-loops, low-energy, low-input biomanufacturing programs for food, pharmaceuticals, and building materials at “small village” scale, which are initially designed for a deep-space crewed Mars mission but have applications here on Earth for supporting sustainable agriculture. Another interest is to develop engineering approaches for microbiomes so we can control communities of microbes that drive the earth’s mineral cycles, support our plants and efficiency and stress responses, and impact the health and food-efficiency of a good many living creatures including ourselves.
James Casey
Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Theory and applications of solid mechanics to traditional materials and biomaterials.
Irina Conboy
Professor, Bioengineering
https://conboylab.berkeley.edu/Our work has been focused on establishing new paradigms in multi-tissue stem cell aging, rejuvenation and regulation by conserved morphogenic signaling pathways. One of our goals is to define pharmacology for enhancing maintenance and repair of adult tissues in vivo. The spearheaded by us heterochronic parabiosis and blood apheresis studies have established that the process of aging is reversible through modulation of circulatory milieu. Our synthetic biology method of choice focuses on bio-orthogonal non-canonical amino acid tagging (BONCAT) and subsequent identification of age-imposed and disease-causal changes in mammalian proteomes in vivo. Our drug delivery reg medicine projects focus on CRISPR/Cas9 based therapeutics for more effective and safer gene editing.
Derfogail Delcassian
Assistant Professor, Bioengineering
The development of immunoengineering technologies to direct immune cell function. We build artificial lymph nodes, mRNA vaccines and 3D printed interfaces to study and control immune cell behaviour. These technologies have applications in cancer therapy, inducing transplant tolerance, spaceflight and auto-immune diseases.
Daniel A. Fletcher
Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Engineering Biological Systems, Bioengineering
Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
The Fletcher Lab develops diagnostic technologies and studies mechanical regulation of membrane and cytoskeleton organization in the context of cell motility, signaling, and host-pathogen interactions. We specialize in development of optical microscopy, force microscopy, and microfluidic technologies to understand fundamental organizational principles through both in vitro reconstitution and live cell experiments. Recent work includes investigating the mechano-biochemistry of branched actin network assembly with force microscopy, studying membrane deformation by protein crowding and oligomerization with model membranes, and reconstituting spindle scaling in encapsulated cytoplasmic extracts. The long-term goal of our work is to understand and harness spatial organization for therapeutic applications in cancer and infectious diseases.
Kevin Healy
Jan Fandrianto Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, Materials Science & Engineering
Research in the Healy Lab emphasizes the relationship between materials and the cells or tissues they contact. The research program focuses on the design and synthesis of bioinspired materials that actively direct the fate of mammalian cells, and facilitate regeneration of damaged tissues and organs. Major discoveries from his laboratory have centered on the control of cell fate and tissue formation in contract with materials that are tunable in both their biological content and mechanical properties. Professor Healy also has extensive experience with human stem cell technologies, microphysiological systems, drug delivery systems, and novel bioconjugate therapeutics.
Christopher Hernandez
Professor in Residence,
Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery and Bioengineering & Therapeutic Sciences, UCSF
Director, Health Innovations Via Engineering (HIVE), UCSF
Dr. Hernandez’s research in biomechanics examines the musculoskeletal system, microscopic organisms and interactions between microbes and materials. Current projects include understanding how the microbiome influences bone and infection of total joint replacements, how bacteria are influenced by mechanical stress and strain, and engineered living materials.
Syed Hossainy
Adjunct Professor, Bioengineering
Tony Keaveny
Chancellors Professor, Bioengineering
Chancellors Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Biomechanics of cortical and trabecular bone; design of spine prostheses; bone fracture and osteoporosis; tissue engineering of bone.
Sanjay Kumar
Chancellor’s Professor, Bioengineering & Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Director, California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) at UC Berkeley
Professor in Residence, Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences, UCSF
Faculty Scientist, Biological Systems and Engineering, LBNL
Our lab seeks to understand and engineer mechanical and other biophysical communication between cells and materials. In addition to investigating fundamental aspects of this problem with a variety of micro/nanoscale technologies, we are especially interested in discovering how this signaling regulates tumor and stem cell biology in the central nervous system. Recent directions have included: (1) Engineering new tissue-mimetic culture platforms for biophysical studies, molecular analysis, and screening; (2) Exploring mechanobiological signaling systems as targets for limiting the invasion of brain tumors and enhancing stem cell neurogenesis; and (3) Creating new biomaterials inspired by cellular structural networks.
Phillip Messersmith
Chair of Bioengineering, Class of 1941 WWII Memorial Chair in Bioengineering and Materials Science and Engineering
https://bioinspiredmaterials.berkeley.edu/My laboratory is interested in understanding structure-property relationships in biological materials and in using this information to design biologically inspired materials for use in healthcare. Fundamental studies include single molecule and bulk biophysical studies of biointerfacial and bulk mechanochemical phenomena in biological materials, whereas our applied studies the design and synthesis of novel biomaterials for tissue repair and regeneration.
Mohammad Reza Kaazempur Mofrad
Professor, Bioengineering
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Faculty Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab
Molecular and Multiscale Biomechanics; Bioinformatics and Computational Biology; Statistical Machine Learning; Computational Precision Health; Microbiome; Personalized Medicine
Niren Murthy
Professor, Bioengineering
https://murthylab.berkeley.edu/Our laboratory is focused on developing new materials for drug delivery and molecular imaging.
Lisa Pruitt
Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Lawrence Talbot Professor, Mechanical Engineering
Characterization of structural evolution in medical grade ultra high molecular weight poliethylene due to sterilization: the implications for total joint replacements.
David Rempel
Professor Emeritus, Bioengineering
Professor Emeritus, Medicine, UCSF
The research focus is on hand and arm biomechanics and the design of workplace tools and tasks in order to improve productivity and the quality of work while preventing upper extremity fatigue and injury. The lab has studied designs of tablets, gesture interfaces, keyboards, mice, pipettors, touch screens, dental tools, construction drills, chairs, and agricultural tools. Funding is primarily from NIH and CDC but also from Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, BART, Logitech, and Herman-Miller.
Boris Rubinsky
Professor Emeritus, Bioengineering
Professor of the Graduate School, Mechanical Engineering
Bioelectronic devices, biotransport, medical imaging, electrical impedance tomography.
David Schaffer
Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, and Molecular & Cell Biology
Executive Director, QB3
Director, Bakar Labs and the Bakar BioEnginuity Hub
Director, Berkeley Stem Cell Center
Our research program melds basic biology and applied engineering principles to investigate preclinical and clinical gene and stem cell therapies, i.e. gene replacement and cell replacement approaches to treat human disease.