Interdisciplinary Life Science - PULSe Office of Interdisciplinary Graduate Programs

Biotechnology

Research includes:

  • Bioenergy
  • Biofuels
  • Bionanotechnology
  • Biosensors
  • Biospectroscopy and Imaging
  • Computational Biology
  • Devices
  • Engineering
  • Human Health
  • Instrumentation
  • Nanotechnology
  • Quantitative Biology
  • Renewable Energy
  • Systems Biology
  • The Environment

Training Group Mission:

The mission of the Biotechnology (BT) Training Group is to develop highly skilled scientists and engineers who excel at the intersection between biology and engineering. The evolution of engineering and its influence on the discovery, design, implementation and translation of biology requires future students who are capable of merging instrumentation, quantitative methods and engineering principles seamlessly into the biology discipline. Because of the breadth in focus, students with both engineering and non-engineering background can be admitted. The training group provides a unique set of courses and lab experiences to provide the quantitative and design background to students interested in exploring the boundaries of science and engineering at Purdue University. The additional expertise required for success in the Biotechnology Training Group requires a minimum of 35 and up to a maximum of 41 credit hours of course-work, which is greater (almost twice) than any other training group and in the range of course-work requirements for engineering departments across campus (eg. ABE: 42, BME: 26). Faculty members of the Training Group have diverse backgrounds and come from diverse departments on campus. Research focus on addressing global challenges related to human health, the environment, biofuels, and renewable energy. The training group provides tremendous opportunities to prepare students for a broad range of career opportunities in industry and academia.


Faculty Membership

Faculty
Research Area
Carroll, Chad

1) The role of advanced glycation end-products in the development of diabetic tendinosis 2) The role of estrogen in tendon health 3) Combined
nutrition/exercise approaches to improve tendon properties in older adults.

Chan, Deva

The Chan Lab believes that understanding the early response to injury is critical to diagnosis, assessment, and intervention in life-altering diseases, including post-traumatic osteoarthritis and traumatic brain injury. True to our biomedical engineering roots, we adopt a multi-disciplinary approach - using biomechanics, biomedical imaging, and matrix biology - to quantify the complex tissue responses to injury.

Clase, Kari
Biotechnology, proteomics and bioinformatics
Dangoudoubiyam, Sriveny

The research in my lab is geared towards understanding the host-pathogen interaction during migration of zoonotic ascarid larvae of the genera, Toxocara and Baylisascaris within the mammalian host. We use a combination of traditional parasitology, molecular biology and "-omics" related tools for identification and characterization of these parasite proteins. Our goal is to lay down a path to develop efficient diagnostics, identify potential vaccine candidates and drug targets to mitigate the effects of these neglected soil-transmitted nematodes.

Deng, Meng
Biomaterials, Musculoskeletal Regenerative Engineering, Micro/Nano-technology, Stem Cell Technology, Translational Biomedical Research
Engelberth, Abigail
Biological Engineering, Bioenergy
Goergen, Craig
Cardiovascular Imaging
Kim, Taeyoon
Biomechanics of cytoskeleton, cells and tissues; Computational modeling of biological structures
Krusemark, Casey
bio-organic chemistry, bioconjugate chemistry, in vitro evolution, drug discovery
Laskin, Julia
Development of mass spectrometry imaging for mapping lipids, metabolites, proteins in biological samples.
Li, Tonglei
Formulation, drug delivery, cancer theranostics, solid-state organic chemistry, computation and modeling.
Liu, Julie
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Liu, Zhongming
Magnetic resonance imaging, image and signal processing,brain decoding and modeling
Mao, Chengde
We are interested in programmed self-assembly of nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), or DNA nanotechnology. Nucleic acids are information-rich molecules. They have well-defined secondary structures (duplexes) and simple interaction rules (Watson-Crick base pairing). These chemical properties render nucleic acids to be excellent molecules for programmed self-assembly. Since 1982, a wide range of nanostructures have been constructed and find applications in biosensing, imaging, smart drug delivery, vaccine, organizing chemical reactions, plasmonic devices etc.
Matosevic, Sandro

Cancer immunotherapy, immunoengineering, natural killer cells, nanomedicine, cell and gene engineering, immunotherapy of solid tumors

Morgan, John A.
The focus of our groups activities is the analysis and manipulation of metabolic pathways. With an increased understanding of the regulation of metabolism, scientists and engineers can rationally manipulate pathways to produce novel compounds or increase the production of specialty compounds. Quantifying metabolic flux is a critical technology that forms the basis for rational metabolic engineering. Our group has been developing the mathematical modeling and experimental tools for the particularly difficult problem of quantifying fluxes in photoautotrophic organisms. We also engineer cyanobacteria to overproduce valuable amino acids.
Rispoli, Joseph
Magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy, electromagnetic modeling in tissue
Robinson, J Paul
Cytomics
Shannahan, Jonathan

Nanomaterials, Environmental and Molecular Toxicology, Nanoparticle-Biomolecule Interactions, Susceptible Subpopulations

Umulis, David M.
Signal transduction in development; mechanisms of robustness, cell fate decisions, and tissue patterning by morphogen gradients
Verma, Mohit
Dr. Verma’s goal is to engineer human microbiomes for improving health. He aims to achieve this objective by understanding the principles of designing and assembling desired communities of microorganisms.
Yeo, Yoon
Controlled drug delivery, bio-nanotechnology
Zhang, Cankui
Dr. Zhang’s research focuses on two areas: 1) elucidating the physiological and molecular roles of plant vascular tissues in normal or stress condition and 2) improving crop yield and stress resistance via biotechnological approaches.
Zhang, Lei
Plant-parasitic nematodes are microscopic soil-borne roundworms, they infect and damage plant roots causing annual crop losses valued at $80-$118 billion worldwide. With most of front-line nematicides being banned due to their extreme toxicity, it is urgent to develop new methods for nematode control. We focus on two groups of plant-parasitic nematodes: 1) Soybean cyst nematode (SCN), the most damaging pathogen of soybean in the US. We study distributions and virulence of SCN populations on soybean fields in Indiana to provide information to growers for effective SCN management. We are also interested in developing new bio-control agents for SCN. 2) Root-knot nematodes (RKNs) cause serious problems in melons and vegetables in Indiana. RKNs secrete effector proteins to root cells to facilitate their infection of plants. Our lab focuses on studying how nematode effectors manipulate plant processes at molecular levels during parasitism. Our goal is to translate the knowledge and develop crop resistance against RKNs by disrupting the molecular plant-nematode interactions using technologies such as gene editing and host-delivered RNAi.
Zhang, Min
Bioinformatics and Biologically Related Disciplines (genomics, nutrition, proteomics, statistical genetics)

Student Membership

Ernest C. Young Hall, Room 170 | 155  S. Grant Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2114 | 765-494-2600

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