Current Research

Biological Engineering: Course 20

Undergraduates who are interested in the program should select a general area of research from those listed on the BE Website and talk directly to the faculty members.

Advice on Finding a UROP

Below are some guidelines that may be helpful to you for finding a UROP. They have been adapted from Prof. David Pritchard, UROP coordinator for Course 8.

• First, realize that the key word to be emphasized in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, is opportunity (for you), not program in the sense of a preplanned program for which you sign up Some faculty advertise by e-mail or posting a notices. You can find the best positions through seeking them out via the web, acquaintances, in recitation, at departmental welcome parties, etc.
• Look at the Biological Engineering research web page to decide what types of research appeal to you, and then look at the faculty research areas pages to find faculty members in your area of interest.
• Some professors may seem less approachable than others, but don't let this dissuade you from contacting them - they may have UROP positions too. Research projects in biological engineering can be found in other initiatives, departments or labs. See for example Computational and Systems Biology and Tiny Technologies. If your interests overlap with other departments, scout for relevant professors in those departments.
• Go by to visit. If the Prof. is unavailable, get a copy of the annual group report, the key journal articles that the group has written, a recent letter written on hottest results, etc. from the Administrative Assistant/Group Secretary (you can't overestimate the value of getting this person on your side). Read these materials to get ideas and knowledge about the given research area, then arrange an appointment.
• Network with upperclass UROPs. MIT's Biomedical Engineering Society is an ideal place to accomplish this.
• When you do visit, remember that the visit shares many aspects of a job interview: take a resume (with phone numbers for your references, if any), stress your interest in and knowledge of this particular group's activities without being overbearing. Have a ready mental list of the skills you possess (these should be on your resume also) that might be applied to the group's research. Even if you only helped build a room on your house, the knowledge that you can use a screwdriver is comforting to someone contemplating hiring you to work in his/her lab. The post-docs and graduate students will not only provide a lot of your supervision if you work in that group, but will be the likely beneficiaries of your work - so talk to them at length, if possible. Ask intelligent questions and show how vitally interested your are in their work.
• There is unlikely to be an immediate positive response; try to get them to indicate a date by which they will call you back, and contact a few days after that if they don't. Rather than accept a flat NO, emphasize your interest in this specific group and indicate your willingness to come by again next semester, your availability if anything comes up in the near future, etc.
• If the first group does not pan out, go back to step 3. Don't get discouraged.

Faculty Research Descriptions

Prof. Eric Alm, 48-317, x3-2726, ejalm@mit.edu

Computational and experimental approaches to understanding the evolution of gene regulatory networks in environmental microorganisms.

Prof. Mark Bathe, NE47-323, x4-5685, mark.bathe@mit.edu

Integration of high resolution light and electron microscopy data with mechanistic models of cytoskeletal function.

Prof. Angela Belcher, belcher@mail.utexas.edu

Biomaterials, biomolecular materials and organic-inorganic interrfaces.

Prof. Paul Blainey, 56-651 ,650-906-5476, pblainey@broadinstitute.org

Research in my group centers on the integration of new microfluidic, optical, and molecular tools for applications in biology and medicine. Focus areas include the evolution and population genetics of microbes, multiparametric functional analyses of heterogeneous groups of cells, and the biophysics of protein-DNA interactions. We emphasize quantitative single-cell and single-molecule approaches, aiming to integrate different datatypes and analytical methods to reveal the workings of natural and engineered biological systems across a range of scales.

Prof. Chris Burge, 68-230A, x8-5997, cburge@mit.edu

Mechanisms of gene regulation.

Prof Arup Chakraborty, E19-502C, x3-3890, arupc@mit.edu

Computational Modeling of Biological and Physiological Processes.

Prof. Peter C. Dedon, 56-787A, x3-8017, pcdedon@mit.edu; Dedon Lab Web Page

Biological chemistry of RNA modifications; chemical and biological mechanisms linking inflammation and human disease; chemical biology of DNA, RNA, protein and lipid damage caused by drugs, ionizing radiation, microbes and endogenous chemicals; applying bioanalytical chemistry and mass spectrometry to biological and biomedical problems.

Prof. Edward F. DeLong, 48-427, x3-5271, delong@mit.edu

Environmental genomics, microbial diversity, photobiology, integrating microbial systems biology with systems ecology.

Prof. C. Forbes Dewey Jr., 3-254, x3-2235, cfdewey@mit.edu

Cell, tissue, and fluid biomechanics; biological imaging.

Prof. Bevin P. Engelward, 56-631, x8-0260, bevin@mit.edu,

DNA damage induced loss of genomic integrity.

Prof. John M. Essigmann, 56-669, x3-6227, jessig@mit.edu, Essignmann Lab Home Page

Molecular mechanisms of carcinogenesis; mechanism based drug design.

Prof. James G. Fox, 45-106, x3-1757, jgfox@mit.edu

Animal models for disease.

Prof. Ernest Fraenkel, 68-323A, x8-8702, fraenkel-admin@mit.edu

Computational Biology; Systems Biology; Transcriptional Regulation.

Prof. Linda Griffith, 66-466, x3-0013, griff@mit.edu

Tissue Engineering.

Prof. Alan J. Grodzinsky, NE47-377, x3-4969, alg@mit.edu

Cell mechanobiology, molecular electromechanics, and tissue engineering.

Prof. Kimberly Hamad-Schifferli, 56-341C, 452-2385, schiffer@mit.edu

Bioengineering, manufacturing, manipulation of biologiical molecules, chemistry, nanotechnology,materials science

Prof. Jongyoon Han, 36-84, x3-2290, jyhan@MIT.EDU

Micro/nanofabrication.

Prof. Darrell Irvine, 8-425, x2-4174, djirvine@mit.edu

Immune system bioengineering, cell and tissue engineering, biomaterials.

Prof. Alan P. Jasanoff, NW14-2213, 452-2538, jasanoff@mit.edu

Molecular imaging in neurobiology, functional MRI, systems neuroscience.

Prof. Roger D. Kamm, 3-260, x3-5330, rdkamm@mit.edu

Cell, tissue, and fluid biomechanics.

Prof. Alexander Klibanov, 56-579, x3-3556, klibanov@mit.edu

Enzyme biotechnology; therapeutic proteins.

Prof. Matthew Lang, 56-651, x3-3159, mjlang@mit.edu

Biological imaging and functional measurement; macromolecular biochemistry & biophysics; molecular, cell and tissue biomechanics.

Prof. Robert S. Langer, E25-342, x3-3107, rlanger@mit.edu

Biomaterials; tissue engineering.

Prof. Douglas Lauffenburger, 56-341, x2-1629, lauffen@mit.edu

Cell, tissue and biomolecular engineering; computational modeling of biological and physiological systems.

Prof. Harvey Lodish, WI-601, x8-5216, lodish@wi.mit.edu

Cytokine- and cell-based therapeutic biotechnology.

Prof. Scott Manalis, E15-422, x3-5039, scottm@media.mit.edu

Molecular, cell and tissue biomechanics, biological imaging and functional measurement, new tools for genomics, functional genomics, proteomics and glycomics.

Prof. Paul Matsudaira, WI-667, x8-5188, matsudaira@wi.mit.edu

Microfabrication biotechnology; molecular- and cell-level biological imaging.

Dr. Steven F. Nagle, 16-239, x4-8150, sfnagle@mit.edu

My research primarily includes the development of novel bioinstrumentation for research, as well as for medical devices. I focus on teaching a practical understanding of the limits of detection and hardware development principles. Past projects have included an educational low-cost atomic force microscope and it's nanoprobes, a low-cost, open-source, quantitative PCR machine, and a microfluidic device to demonstrate chemotaxis, in collaboration with Prof. Roman Stocker, and a hand-held spectrometer to noninvasively measure human hemoglobin levels.

Prof. Jacquin C. Niles, 56-341b, x4-3701, jcniles@mit.edu

Development of new molecular tools for regulating transcription and translation using chemical and synthetic biology approaches, aimed at facilitating investigation of human pathogens.

Jonathan Runstadler, 16-743B, x4-5057, jrun@mit.edu

My lab seeks to understand genetic factors that impact susceptibility to infectious disease, specific or general and the repercussions for potential epidemics, persistence, and evolution of those infectious agents. Our research is conducted within the context of the interactions that define the ecology between an infectious agent, the environment and the host. Our focus is on the host/agent interaction and we are exploring a variety of approaches that may shed light on these interactions.

In doing so, our new research initiatives seek to break down traditional academic boundaries and bring together collaborative teams to address issues including the identification of disease vectors, the role of environmental change and pathogen persistence, population genetics and evolutionary biology, and the ecology of infectious agents.

Prof. Leona Samson, 56-235, x8-7813, lsamson@mit.edu

Cellular responses to damaging agents; the repair of alkylation damage and its influence on alkylation induced cell death, apoptosis, mutation, chromosome damage and cancer.

Prof. Ram Sasisekharan, 16-561, x8-9494, rams@mit.edu,

Glycotechnology and therapeutics.

Prof. Peter T. C. So, NE47-279, x3-6552, ptso@mit.edu

Biomedical optics; micromanipulation and fabrication; molecular, cell and tissue biomechanics; non-invasive optical biopsy.

Prof. Subra Suresh, 4-104, x3-3320, ssuresh@mit.edu

Single cell and single molecule mechanical response, experiments and computations.

Prof. Steven Tannenbaum, 56-731A, x3-3729, srt@mit.edu,

Nitric Oxide, Metabolism and toxicology of drug development, mass spectrometry and proteomic

Prof. William G. Thilly, 16-743, x3-6221, thilly@mit.edu,

Origins of genetic change in humans.

Prof. Bruce Tidor , 32-212, x3-7258, tidor@mit.edu

Tidor Lab Home Page. Computational biology and bioengineering;molecular biophysics; rational drug design; biochemical networks and signal transduction; Systems biology.

Prof. Forest White, 56-787, 8-8949, fwhite@mit.edu

Proteomics, protein phosphorylation analysis, mass spectrometry

Prof. K. Dane Wittrup, E19-551, x3-4578, wittrup@mit.edu

Molecular bioengineering, protein engineering, therapeutic protein biotechnology.

Prof. Michael Yaffe, E18-580, x2-2442, myaffe@mit.edu

Regulation of protein-protein interactions; structure and function of modular signaling domains; design of bioinformatics tools for proteomic analysis.

Prof. Ioannis V. Yannas, 3-332, x3-4469, yannas@mit.edu

Tissue engineering.