This section is not meant to give an exhaustive list of the research areas of the faculty involved in the BLP, but provide an overview in broad strokes and give a sense of the types of projects that can be encompassed within the BLP.
Bioengineering – includes bioimaging, bioinspired design, biomechanics, biomaterials, molecular programming & systems biology
- Bioimaging: Biophotonics, advanced imaging technologies, computational image analysis, noninvasive biomedical imaging, single-molecule technologies, flow-field imaging technologies, in situ amplification.
- Bioinspired Design: Engineering physiological machines, engineering self-powered technologies, control systems, synthetic heteropolymers, and self-healing circuits and systems.
- Biomaterials: Biocompatible medical materials, nanoscale-engineered smart materials, device-tissue interface, and cell-material interactions.
- Biomechanics: Molecular and cellular biophysics, cardiovascular mechanics, muscle and membrane mechanics, physiology and mechanics of flapping flight, multicellular morphodynamics, cell-biomaterial interactions.
- Molecular Programming: Abstractions, languages, algorithms and compilers for programming nucleic acid function, molecular information processing, molecular complexity theory, free energy landscapes, metastable systems, self-assembly across length scales, algorithmic self-assembly, synthetic molecular motors, in vitro and in vivo nucleic acid circuits.
- Systems Biology: Roles of circuit architecture and stochasticity in cellular decision making, feedback, control and complexity in biological networks, multicellular morphodynamics, principles of developmental circuitry including signal integration and coordination, spatial patterning, and organ formation, principles of feedback between tissue mechanics and genetic expression, neural development and disease.
Biomedical Devices - BioNEMS, BioMEMS, laboratories-on-a-chip including microfluidic systems, neural networks, microscopes, and diagnostics, novel measurement principles, neural interfaces and prostheses, locomotion rehabilitation, molecular imaging during surgery.
Cell and Tissue Engineering - Multicellular morphodynamics, principles of feedback between tissue mechanics and genetic expression, non-natural protein biomaterials, cell-biomaterial interactions, developmental patterning.
Medical Diagnostic and Monitoring On-Chip Devices - Magnetic spectroscopy, bioassay, and drug-screening platforms, micro-PCR and sequencer, and on-chip bio-sensors.
Medical Diagnostic, Monitoring, and Therapeutic Implants - Microscale implants with new functionalities to interface intact tissues and/or to replace defective functions: retinal implants, spinal cord implants, ECG implants, cardiovascular implants, implantable pressure sensors, glucose sensors, drug delivery pumps, and implantable bio-analyte sensors.
Medical Nanoelectronics, Imaging & Sensing - Integrated nanoelectronics and circuits for medical applications, extremely low power medical electronics and sensors, high bandwidth wireless communication devices, self-healing circuits and systems, on-chip tera-hertz sources, and systems-on-a-chip. Medical photonics and sensors, advanced imaging technologies, micro flow-field imaging, computational image analysis, lensless microscopy-on-a-chip, diagnostic and therapeutic ultrasound and shock waves, single-molecule detection and diagnostics, magnetic spectroscopy, tera-hertz imaging, Raman spectroscopy, and non-invasive label-free biomedical imaging.
Micro-/Nano-scale Medical Technologies, Fluidics & Devices - Biochips, bio-MEMS/NEMS, micro-/nano-fabrication for medical applications. Micro-/nano-fluidics, drug delivery, and physiological machines.
Molecular Medicine - Engineering immunity, cancer vaccines, AIDS vaccine, novel anti-cancer therapeutics, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, Huntington's disease, nicotine addiction, microbiome perturbations in disease, molecular basis of autism, programmable chemotherapies, conditional chemotherapies, nanoparticle drug delivery.