Ho-Wook Jun, Ph.D. Dr. Jun is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and has been at UAB since 2005. A major focus of his research in tissue engineering has been developing a pro-healing multifunctional nano-matrix that can mimic the chemical and biological properties of native endothelium. An important application of the nano matrix is as a stent lining to prevent restenosis. His group is also working on stem cell-based tissue regeneration using an injectable self-assembled nano-matrix gel. A significant barrier to the therapeutic use of stem cells is poor cell retention in vivo. They are evaluating the therapeutic potential and long-term engraftment of hIPSC-derived endothelial cells and cardiomyocytes that are encapsulated in the injectable gel in experimental myocardial infarction (MI). The goal is to provide stem cells with a nurturing and protective environment that can enhance the survival of stem cells and improve cardiac function post-MI. He is the co-founder of a company, Endomimetics, that commercializes biomaterials.

Prasanna Krishnamurthy, M.V.Sc., Ph.D. Dr. Krishnamurthy joined UAB in 2016 and is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering and BME Graduate Program Director. The overall research theme in his laboratory is to understand the mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases that will aid in developing innovative new therapies and to translate that information to the clinic. Areas of emphasis include: i) molecular mechanisms of cardiovascular diseases under pathophysiological stress such as diabetes, ii) stem cell biology and regenerative medicine, and iii) use of bioengineering tools to enhance wound repair. Dr. Krishnamurthy’s research involves pharmacological, biochemical, molecular, cellular, and physiological techniques including transgenic mice and surgical models.

Palaniappan Sethu, Ph.D. Dr. Sethu has a joint appointment as Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease and Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He joined UAB in 2013. His group has core expertise in cell and tissue culture, micro- and nano-fabrication, micro- and nano-fluidics, biomechanics, hemodynamics, and bioreactor construction. His laboratory invented cell culture model platforms for cardiac and endothelial cells. These platforms represent the current state of the art in the culture of cardiac and vascular cells. The cardiac platform is currently being used to achieve functional maturation of human induced pluripotent stem cells and to use these cells to construct relevant models of human cardiovascular disease. The endothelial platform is being used to model disease conditions with altered vessel hemodynamics. His group’s ultimate goal is to construct physiologically relevant models of the human circulatory system for disease modeling and regenerative medicine.

Suzanne Lapi, Ph.D. Dr Lapi is a Professor of Radiology and Chemistry. She joined UAB in 2015. Her research is in the use of radiolabeled compounds for imaging and assessment. Her group works on techniques using novel radioisotopes such as 76Br, 64Cu, 89Zr, and others and has focused on the chemistry, biological evaluation, and in some cases clinical translation of these promising compounds. She is the Director of the UAB cyclotron facility and head of the radiochemistry group and oversees the production of radioisotopes using the TR24 cyclotron and the production of radiolabeled imaging agents for both preclinical and human use.

M.K. Sewell-Loftin, Ph.D. Dr. Sewell-Loftin joined UAB in 2020 as an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering.  Her lab is focused on investigating the biomechanical regulation of cellular processes including angiogenesis, cell proliferation, and migration. They utilize novel microfluidic device platforms with multiple, adjacent microtissue regions that can be independently loaded with different matrices and cell populations. Control over interstitial flow between microtissues allows for control of diffusion and biochemical signaling cues. These model systems represent complex microtissues with self-assembled vascular networks. Using them, they have demonstrated that microstrains generated in the extracellular matrix by fibroblasts are sufficient to drive angiogenesis.

Yuhua Song, Ph.D. Dr. Song is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering. She has been at UAB since 2006. Dr. Song’s research group develops and applies multiscale computational modeling and experimental approaches to investigate the fundamental structural and functional mechanisms of biomolecular interactions. They investigate apoptosis and apoptotic cell removal and model the protein complexes regulating cell adhesion and collagen expression in tissue remodeling. Another focus of the group is the optimized design of biomaterials and small molecules/drugs for cell-based therapeutics.

Anna Sorace, Ph.D. Dr. Sorace joined UAB in 2019 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Radiology. Her lab focuses on advanced and quantitative translational imaging to understand disease progression, response to therapy, and guidance of interventions in preclinical oncology models leading into clinical trials. Advanced imaging with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography provides the opportunity to extract molecular and functional information such as immune infiltration, perfusion, and proliferation prior to anatomical changes in tumors, side effects in organs, and downstream clinical alterations. Combining longitudinal quantitative data on underlying biological changes in the tumor and key organs (heart, brain) with computational modeling of disease processes allows for optimization (sequencing, timing, dosing) of cancer therapies for the greatest effectiveness of anti-tumor kill while reducing cardio and neuro-toxicities.

Min Xie, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Xie is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. He joined UAB in 2015 following a fellowship at UT Southwestern Medical Center. His group works on mechanisms of cardiac reperfusion injury with an eye toward clinical translation. Specifically, Inhibition of class 1 histone deacetylases (HDACs) at the time of reperfusion confers cardioprotection in multiple animal models of ischemia/reperfusion injury. This cardioprotection involves the promotion of autophagy. They are investigating whether the cell-permeable peptide Tat-Beclin can induce autophagy and cardioprotection in I/R injury.

Lei Ye, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Ye joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2021 and is currently Associate Professor. He was previously at the National University of Singapore. His lab’s research focuses on developing novel molecular and cellular therapies for the treatment of ischemic heart disease and heart failure. The strategic targets of their research are heart muscle and vessels. They develop cellular therapeutics for promoting heart muscle repair and regeneration and also develop molecular therapeutics for the treatment of endothelial dysfunction and atherosclerosis. Dr. Ye has more than 20 years of experience working on cell transfer therapy and angiogenic gene therapy for the treatment of myocardial infarction in small and large animal models of heart failure.

Martin Young, Ph.D. Dr. Young is Professor of Medicine, Vice-Director for Research in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease, and Section Chief for Basic and Translational Research in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. Dr. Young’s research focuses on cardiometabolic diseases, assessing the mechanisms by which environmental factors (e.g., diet, time-of-day) and metabolic disease states (e.g., diabetes, obesity) influence cardiac contractility and contribute to the pathogenesis of heart failure. Currently, his work is dedicated to understanding the interrelationship between cardiac metabolism, contractility, and failure, and the mechanisms by which substrate imbalances impair cardiac structure and function.

Yang Zhou, Ph.D. Dr. Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering. She started her lab at UAB in 2021. Her research career has been devoted to studying molecular mechanisms that define cardiac lineage identity during developmental and reprogramming processes. The Zhou lab utilizes direct cardiac reprogramming as a major model to understand how cardiomyocytes are induced, mature, and maintain their cell fate identity. By leveraging functional screening, genomics, and computational approaches, her current work focuses on understanding the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation underlying direct cardiac reprogramming and promoting its therapeutic application. Her projects have attracted grants from NIH and were recognized by AHA early career awards.

Jake Chen, Ph.D. Dr. Chen is a Professor of Genetics and the Associate Director and Chief Bioinformatics Officer of the UAB Informatics Institute. He works in bioinformatics, data mining, and systems biology for precision medicine applications. He is interested in developing bioinformatics algorithms and databases that help improve our understanding of biomedical big data–from genomes to diseases to drugs. His focus is on developing computational knowledge-based models that help predict disease prognosis and gain power in therapeutic intervention and tailored treatment decision-making processes.

Thomas Denney, Ph.D. Dr. Denney is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Auburn University where he has been since 1994. Dr. Denney’s research program focuses on the analysis and acquisition of cardiovascular MRI data in humans and animals, in particular on measuring quantitative, 3D mechanical strain in the myocardium from tagged cardiac MRI. In collaboration with investigators at UAB, he has applied strain analysis techniques to gain insight into patients with hypertension. Dr. Denney has also developed techniques for quantifying the 3D shape of the LV, and, in collaboration with UAB investigators, used these techniques along with strain techniques to study changes in the LV resulting from mitral regurgitation. Dr. Denney has recently expanded his research to 31P MR spectroscopy in the heart and skeletal muscle with a particular interest in measuring both myocardial strain and energetics.

Yu-Hua Fang, Ph.D. Dr. Fang is an Associate Professor of Radiology. He joined UAB in 2019 from National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan. His lab’s research goal is to advance the use of biomedical imaging and imaging informatics for precision medicine. Their short-term goal is to establish a strong imaging informatics research program that applies, optimizes, and validates image quantification and machine learning techniques to achieve more precise and reliable clinical decisions through translational imaging studies. With advanced technologies based on image quantification, PET kinetic modeling, imaging informatics, and image-based classification/prediction, they seek to advance imaging informatics research and promote its application in precision medicine.

Vladimir Fast, Ph.D. Dr. Fast is a Professor of Biomedical Engineering. He joined UAB in 1997. His laboratory specializes in optical mapping of electrical and ionic activity in the heart. Their research combines studies of impulse propagation, cardiac arrhythmias, and defibrillation on several levels of complexity, from cell cultures to whole hearts. In the course of these studies, they have developed novel experimental methods, such as a method for simultaneous optical mapping of membrane potential and intracellular calcium, and a fiber-optic-based method for intramural voltage and calcium mapping. Their current research is focused on defibrillation and the effects of electrical fields on cardiac tissue; cardiac optogenetics, a novel technology allowing control of the behavior of excitable cells with light; and cardiovascular tissue engineering with emphasis on electrophysiological evaluation of engineered myocardium.

Mohammad Haider, Ph.D. Dr. Haider is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has been at UAB since 2011. He holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Haider’s broad research interests include low-power analog and RF circuit design for sensors and biomedical instrumentation, energy harvesting and self-powered biomedical sensor systems, bio-inspired system design, and ultra-wideband sensing and communication for biomedical systems. Projects in his group include the development of (1) wearable breath-by-breath fluorescence-quenching-based O2 and CO2 sensors for real-time continuous assessment of metabolic energy-expenditure, and (2) flexible sensor patches that could be applied to map biopotentials from tissue-engineered constructs or from hearts undergoing therapy.

Jeffrey Holmes, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Holmes joined UAB as the Dean of Engineering in 2020. He was previously at the University of Virginia. Dr. Holmes is a biomedical engineer and has worked for many years in cardiac mechanics, studying the interactions between mechanics, function, and growth and remodeling. His lab uses computational models, engineered tissues (collagen and fibrin gels), and cell stretch experiments to probe how mechanical conditions such as direction, magnitude, and frequency of stretch affect fibroblast migration, alignment, and collagen deposition.

Elizabeth Lipke, Ph.D. Dr. Lipke is the Mary and John H. Sanders Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Auburn University. Her research group investigates the role of microenvironmental cues in directing pluripotent stem cell differentiation into cardiomyocytes. They recently reported for the first time that human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) can successfully be differentiated into contracting cardiomyocytes within a controlled biomimetic hydrogel microenvironment, achieving developmentally appropriate temporal changes in gene expression, high cardiomyocyte yield, and T-tubule formation without external electrical or mechanical stimulation. In addition to utilizing biomimetic materials for advancing cardiac cell production, the Lipke Lab has identified novel integrin-specific peptides that support endothelial progenitor cell (EPC) capture under shear for tissue vascularization.

Steven Lloyd, M.D., Ph.D. Dr. Lloyd came to UAB in 1997 for a clinical residency in Internal Medicine and is currently a Professor of Medicine and Radiology. He is also head of the Cardiovascular MRI section in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease and holds a secondary appointment in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. He has interests in the use of MR imaging and spectroscopic methods to study the heart and vascular system and to examine the effects of cardiovascular disease on other organ systems. The human Magnetic Resonance facility that he leads has two dedicated whole-body MRI scanners that are available for research use. His basic science research investigates the effects of diets designed for weight loss on the response to myocardial ischemia/infarction.

Yuji Nakada, Ph.D. Dr. Nakada joined the UAB Department of Biomedical Engineering in 2020 and is currently Assistant Professor. He was previously at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He develops methods for cardiac regenerative therapy. He found that exposure to severe hypoxia two weeks after myocardial infarction induced a robust regenerative response with decreased myocardial fibrosis and improved left ventricular systolic function, highlighting the potential therapeutic role of tissue regeneration for ischemic heart disease.

Arie Nakhmani, Ph.D. Dr. Nakhmani is an Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. He has been at UAB since 2013.  His Computational Computer Vision Lab is conducting research in biomedical image analysis, mainly for cardiac, hepatic, and neurologic MRI and CT data. The questions explored are related to robust automatic image segmentation, registration, and visual tracking. For example, electrode localization and tumor segmentation in medical images.

Manuel Rosa-Garrido, Ph.D. Dr. Rosa-Garrido joined the Department of Biomedical Engineering as an Assistant Professor in 2022. His current work focuses on determining the role that epigenetics and chromatin play in heart failure and exploring potential epigenetic therapies. He seeks to determine the features of the genome and chromatin structure that influence the progression of cardiac disease and to develop novel therapeutic strategies based on targeting chromatin structure to prevent and reverse heart failure.

Vinoy Thomas, Ph.D.Dr. Thomas joined UAB in 2012 and is currently an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering. His research is focused on polymeric biomaterials with application to tissue and organ regeneration. His group has expertise in multiphase polymer systems including nanocomposites and blends; biofabrication processes such as hybrid-fiber spinning and 3D bioprinting; synthesis, development and characterizations of polymers; and development of nanocomposites and nanoscaffolds for tissue engineering.

Gregory Walcott, M.D. Dr. Walcott is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. He has been at UAB since 1994. Dr. Walcott is a cardiac electrophysiologist with training in surgery. He has been active in performing animal surgery and developing animal models of cardiovascular disease for over 25 years. He has extensive experience with pigs, dogs, and sheep. His research involves deciphering the mechanisms of ventricular and atrial arrhythmias and the development and preclinical evaluation of cardiac devices. He has extensive collaborations with investigators from the medical device industry.