faculty holding bone for osteoporosis research

Research

Convergent research with collaboration across government, industry, and academia

Faculty conduct research as part of the College of Engineering’s multidisciplinary research centers and institutes, such as the Institute for the Chemical Imaging of Living Systems, and the Institute for Mechanobiology, and within their laboratories. 

The department’s research areas of focus include Biomechanics and Mechanobiology; Biomedical Devices and Bioimaging; Molecular, Cell, and Tissue Engineering; and Systems, Synthetic, and Computational Bioengineering.

View faculty profiles for laboratory research as well as our recent Annual Reports.

Research at a Glance


Quick Facts

$34M

external research awards (2022-2024)

20

young investigator awards

16

professional society fellowships

47

Full-time faculty


External Research Funding Examples

  • Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group
  • National Institutes of Health
  • National Science Foundation
  • National Cancer Institute
  • National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases
  • American Heart Association
  • National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
  • The Department of Homeland Security

Latest News

Patent for New Material for 3D Printing of Living Tissues

BioE Professor Guohao Dai received a patent for “Biodegradable elastic hydrogels for bioprinting.”

Establishing a Tracking Methodology To Determine Food-and-Health Links

COS/BioE Professor Jing-Ke Weng received funding from The Pew Charitable Trusts 2024 Innovation Fund to develop a methodology that will precisely trace food molecules as they travel through the human body to better understand food-host interactions and apply that knowledge to disease prevention and treatment.

New Bioinnovation Center in Ghana

BioE/COS Professor Lee Makowski established a Bioinnovation Center in Ghana at Academic City University College. He is developing and distributing affordable, locally designed medical technologies, including ventilator technology that was originally developed by the late Craig Smallwood, PhD’18, bioengineering.

Reprogrammed Pig Aortic Heart Valves Create New Options for Human Transplants

BioE Professor Ning Wang coauthored “Engineering Aortic Valves via Transdifferentiating Fibroblasts Into Valvular Endothelial Cells Without Using Viruses or iPS Cells,” published in Bioactive Materials. For the research, human skin cells were reprogrammed into heart valve cells and then used to successfully transplant a pig heart valve into a rodent.