The Department of
Biomedical Engineering

Graduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering
The Doctoral Program
Master of Science (MS) in Biomedical Engineering
Master of Engineering (MEng) in Biomedical Engineering
Affiliations
Research Interests of the Research Faculty
Research Interests of Affiliated Faculty

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Department Chair Solomon R. Eisenberg

Associate Chair for Graduate Affairs Joyce Wong

Associate Chair for Undergraduate Affairs H. Steven Colburn

Department Director Matt Barber

Graduate Studies in Biomedical Engineering

Biomedical engineering is one of the most exciting areas of modern technological research. By combining life sciences and engineering it addresses critical problems in medicine and physiology. Quantitative engineering methods are used to obtain a clearer understanding of normal and abnormal functions of the human body. Boston University’s Department of Biomedical Engineering was established in the College of Engineering in 1966.

The department currently enjoys flourishing and vibrant undergraduate and graduate programs offering the BS, MEng, MS, and PhD, and participates in BS/MD and MD/PhD programs with the School of Medicine. The department presents a unique state-of-the-art integrated approach from molecular and cellular levels up through neural and whole-system function. Research by faculty and students takes place in departmental and selected adjunct laboratories and in five affiliated centers.

In January 2006, the Biomedical Engineering Department was awarded the Translational Research Partnership Program. This award, from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation, enables the Biomedical Engineering Department to create a translational research program in biomedical engineering. This partnership will reinforce the University’s already strong commitment to translational research and expand a substantial infrastructure devoted to moving that research from Boston University laboratories into clinical practice. The program mobilizes multiple health-care resources predominant in Boston through a carefully structured process of proposal development and mentoring, administered by an oversight committee drawn from the leadership of each of the involved agencies, as well as from industry and venture capital communities. It actively engages BME faculty in part through a staff of “site miners” dedicated to identifying promising opportunities in translational biomedical engineering at Boston University. We expect the Coulter Foundation Translational Research Program at Boston University to be a national model for integrating technology development and commercialization into the fundamental work of biomedical engineering departments. The main focus of this program is to:

• Create a process which helps all members of the BME faculty identify opportunities for translational research and supports their capacity to pursue them.
• Create a process by which several highly promising translational research projects are regularly moved past well-defined milestones towards a real impact on clinical medicine and human health.

The Center for Advanced Biotechnology brings computation to bear on unraveling genomic organization and structure. The Center for Biomolecular Engineering Research is aimed at understanding biomolecular structure, promoting the computer-aided design of new molecular architectures (for drugs and vaccines), and providing the computation infrastructure for the nation’s biotechnology effort. The Hearing Research Center was formed to encourage and support the highest-quality research in hearing science and its applications. It combines theoretical and experimental studies of auditory processing to understand hearing in both normal and impaired auditory systems. The Center for BioDynamics brings techniques from dynamical systems theory and its applications to solve problems in biology and engineering. The NeuroMuscular Research Center conducts research aimed at developing treatments for various neuromuscular disorders from lower back pain to paralysis.

Faculty members also conduct research in sensory systems and in cardiorespiratory systems. The former includes research on vision and the application of artificial intelligence to cognitive problems in patients with brain lesions. The latter includes research in respiratory mechanics, pulmonary gas transport, and heart rate variability and control. Prospective students should refer to the list of faculty interests that follows. The centers and laboratories all have a solid funding base from government agencies, foundations, and/or corporate sponsors, such as the Department of Energy, Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the National Science Foundation.

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The Doctoral Program

Applicants to the doctoral program are encouraged to contact faculty members in the department and discuss research plans. For contact information, see http://bme.bu.edu. The PhD Programs in Engineering at Boston University pamphlet, available from the Graduate Programs Office, 48 Cummington Street, explains the requirements for the PhD program in some detail. All requirements for the engineering PhDs meet the minimum criteria set forth for the PhD program program which can be found in the Graduate Programs under the General PhD Program Requirements section of this website. These and additional requirements pertaining to all engineering PhD students are outlined below.

Admission, Prerequisites, and Financial Aid Applications for admission are invited from students with undergraduate training in engineering, mathematics, physics, or natural sciences. All applicants are required to submit an application form, transcripts of previous study, scores from the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test, and at least two letters of recommendation. Required credentials for both the MS and PhD programs include a B+ average. For international students, a minimum TOEFL score of 625 on the written exam or 263 on the computer-based exam is expected. A score of 7.0 or higher is expected on the IELTS.

For admission with or without financial aid consideration, domestic applications must be submitted by January 15 and international applications by December 15 for the fall semester. Most students admitted to the PhD program are offered financial aid in the form of various fellowships, which include tuition, health insurance, and the GSU fee. Applications for admission may be obtained from the College of Engineering Graduate Programs Office, 48 Cummington Street, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215; 617-353-9760, e-mail: enggrad@bu.edu; College of Engineering Graduate Programs website. An electronic application is available on the Web at www.bu.edu/eng/grad/apply.

Course Requirements All PhD students must show proficiency in mathematics by fulfilling the departmental mathematics requirement and pass an oral qualifying exam in biomedical engineering. An oral defense of the dissertation proposal and a final oral examination defending the dissertation are also required. All PhD students are expected to become connected with a research laboratory and engage in goal-oriented research by the end of their first year.

Postbachelor’s PhD students must enroll for a minimum of 64 credits. Eight of the 16 courses (32 credits) must be structured (non-research courses), seven of which must be at the graduate level. Specific requirements include:

• ENG BE 505 Molecular Bioengineering I
• ENG BE 706 Quantitative Physiology for Engineers
• at least two courses from the graduate BME core curriculum
• each student must complete a minimum of 16 research credits of BE 900

Post-master’s PhD students must enroll for a minimum of 32 credits and must take 24 credits of approved structured courses, including those listed above. Up to 16 credits of this structured coursework may be waived if equivalence is demonstrated. Students must also take at least eight credits of unstructured BE 900 Research.

The determination of equivalent graduate courses will be subject to the review of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Committee.

All PhD students are required to have at least two semesters of teaching experience as a graduate teaching fellow. This assignment is assigned by the Associate Chair for Graduate Studies.

Advisor All degree-seeking students are assigned an academic advisor who is a full-time academic faculty member in the department. The Associate Chair for Graduate Studies assigns an academic advisor for each student.

Qualifying Examinations The biomedical engineering qualifying exam is taken at the end of the first academic year. Students must also show proficiency in mathematics by fulfilling the departmental mathematics requirement.

Oral Prospectus Defense Within five semesters of matriculation, the student is required to present an oral thesis proposal to the prospective dissertation committee and have the written dissertation prospectus approved. The committee evaluates the potential of the proposed research and the student’s academic preparation to engage in dissertation research.

Residency Requirement, PhD Candidacy, Dissertation Prospectus, Final Oral Examination Time Limit See General Requirements in the "Doctoral Programs in Engineering" section of this site.

Dissertation A PhD candidate is expected to prepare and carry out an independent and original research project in partial fulfillment of the dissertation requirement. The dissertation committee with a minimum of four members must include three College of Engineering faculty, including two Biomedical Engineering academic faculty members, and one faculty member of an academic department other than the one in which the student is enrolled. Frequently, scholars from other colleges within the University, as well as outside the University serve on dissertation committees. A Special Faculty Appointment form is available from the Biomedical Department Office for this purpose.

MD/PhD Combined Degree Program The combined degree program is conducted under the joint auspices of the School of Medicine and the College of Engineering and is designed for and open to highly qualified individuals who are strongly motivated for an education and a career in both medicine and research. The purpose of the program is to provide students with the opportunity to obtain advanced education and research training in biomedical engineering while providing exposure to and training in clinical medicine. The program requires six to seven years of study and leads to both the MD and PhD degrees. The applicant must meet the requirements for admission to both the School of Medicine as a candidate for the MD degree and the College of Engineering as a candidate for the PhD degree. The minimum entrance requirements and the prerequisite courses for the School of Medicine are the same as those for the Division of Medical & Dental Sciences. Applicants for the MD/PhD degree program are required to submit the results of the Medical College Admission Test and those of the Graduate Record Examination.

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Master of Science (MS) in Biomedical Engineering

The program of study leading to the MS in Biomedical Engineering is tailored to individual student interests and provides considerable flexibility. Each study program must be approved by the student’s academic advisor, as well as by the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Committee. Elements of the study program common for all students are course requirements, a research project, a thesis, and a thesis defense.

The study program must satisfy both the requirements of the College of Engineering and additional requirements of the department.

Course Requirements The MS program requires completion of a 36-credit-hour study program: a noncredit research seminar course, seven structured courses, and two research courses that culminate in a master’s research project and thesis. These courses are as follows:

• two Biomedical Engineering elective courses
• a graduate-level physiology or biology course (4 cr)
• a mathematics elective (4 cr)
• three approved course electives (only one may be below the 500 level) (12 cr)
• ENG BE 790 Biomedical Engineering Seminar Series (0 cr)
• ENG BE 900 Research (8 cr)

A program of study identifying the seven structured courses must be submitted prior to submission of the MS thesis proposal and must be approved by the student’s faculty advisor and the BME Graduate Committee.

Graduate students who do not satisfy the prerequisites for the courses above are expected to make up any and all deficiencies.

Grades The department permits only 4 credits of C to be applied toward its degree. A grade point index of at least 3.0 (B) must be maintained.

Research Project Requirement Each student is required to undertake a suitable research project supervised by a member
of the department or by someone deemed acceptable by the Graduate Program Committee. Graduate students are expected to register for ENG BE 900 Research each semester they work on their project. However, only 8 credits may be applied to the 36 required for the degree.

Thesis Proposal The suitability of the research project is determined by the thesis advisor. The graduate student submits a short (three-to-five-page) written project proposal and a one-page abstract to the advisor for approval. The time frame for the proposal submission and thesis defense is structured so that criticisms offered by the thesis committee may be used constructively by the student. Therefore, the proposal may not be submitted for approval in the semester of expected graduation. Once the proposal is approved, the student and advisor will choose a minimum of two additional thesis readers. The thesis advisor and the additional readers constitute the graduate student’s defense committee. At least two members of the defense committee must be full-time members of the department, and at least one member of the committee must be from outside the department.

It is the student’s responsibility to schedule a formal meeting with his/her Thesis Committee members at least once for discussion and approval of the brief proposal document. Along with the proposal document, the student must present the Master’s Proposal and Thesis Committee Approval form to his/her thesis committee. If the proposal is approved, the members of the thesis committee must sign the form, thereby indicating their willingness to participate on the committee. The student submits the signed approval form and the proposal document to the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Committee. It is expected that the student’s thesis committee will meet regularly with the student throughout the remainder of his/her thesis research. The functions of the defense committee are as follows:

1. to provide advice as the project evolves
2. to review preliminary drafts of the thesis
3. to conduct the thesis defense
4. to communicate the results to the chair of the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Committee

Thesis Requirement The results of the research project must be communicated to the scientific and engineering community in a formal thesis. Editorial guidelines for the thesis are found in A Guide for the Writers of Dissertations and Theses,available in the Biomedical Department Office, the College’s Graduate Programs Office, and Mugar Library.

Thesis Defense The final academic requirement for the MS degree is the successful defense of the thesis before the defense committee. The format of the defense is not rigid and is usually decided upon by the individual committee. The defense committee, however, must be unanimous in passing the student. The defense committee chair informs the graduate programs committee of the results of the defense by completing a thesis defense checklist. The University requires that two copies of each thesis or dissertation be submitted to Mugar Memorial Library. Once the final thesis is approved by the thesis committee, the student must submit to the department the two copies for Mugar Library, plus one copy for the department, one copy for each member of the thesis committee, and at least one personal copy to be bound. The department and library copies must all have original signatures of committee members and be submitted according to established deadlines.

Students should be able to complete the MS program within two calendar years.

Deadlines The graduate student is responsible for meeting the various deadlines for submission of the program planning sheet, the thesis proposal, and the final thesis document. See the Graduate Program Deadlines section for 2009/2010 on this website.

Master of Engineering (MEng) in Biomedical Engineering

The Master of Engineering (MEng) degree in Biomedical Engineering is a professional Masters Program for students who are focused on a career in industry. The curriculum ensures that students looking for a career in the healthcare sector gain fundamental technology and commercialization skills important to biomedical engineers. Students in the MEng degree program will receive exposure to issues related to intellectual property and commercialization, as well as high quality training in advanced biomedical engineering courses.

Curriculum Master of Engineering students are required to complete a minimum of 32 credit hours. No master’s thesis is required.

Structured Course Requirements for MEng in Biomedical Engineering

• BME Technical Electives from Specified List (12 credits)
• ENG Technical Electives at 500-level or higher may include additional BE coursework (8 credits)
• Math Course selected from Approved List (4 credits)

Choice of TWO Management courses from the following:

• EK 731 (HM 801) Bench to Bedside—Translating Biomedical Innovation from the Laboratory to the Marketplace
• HM 703 Health Sector Issues and Opportunities
• SI 851 Entrepreneurship
• SI 852 Starting New Ventures
• SPI 853 Entrepreneurial Management
• PL 870 Government, Society, and the New Entrepreneur

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Affiliations

The Department of Biomedical Engineering’s affiliates include a number of medical institutions in addition to our own Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. These affiliations include Massachusetts General Hospital, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Beth Israel Hospital, New England Medical Center, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Most of our affiliations have been made at the individual faculty level and through graduate students receiving training in the context of project work with faculty members at both institutions. In some cases we have MDs working in our laboratories on the Charles River Campus. We also have faculty and graduate students working in laboratories at hospitals. Our graduate students take medical school courses as electives in their graduate programs, as well as courses taught jointly by faculty from our department and from the School of Medicine.

Other medically oriented affiliations are taking place with faculty colleagues in the Boston University Sargent College of Health & Rehabilitation Sciences and the College of Arts & Sciences. These include research collaboration involving students in physical therapy, communication disorders, audiology, health sciences (neuroanatomy and exercise physiology), physics, and biomechanics.

Research Interests of the Faculty

Irving Bigio, PhD: medical applications of optics, lasers, and spectroscopy; biomedical optics and biophotonics; nonlinear optics, quantum electronics, and laser physics.

Charles R. Cantor, PhD: human genome analysis, molecular genetics; new biophysical tools and methodologies; genetic engineering. (on leave)

H. Steven Colburn, PhD: hearing research, particularly binaural interaction; virtual acoustic environments.

James J. Collins, DPhil: nonlinear dynamics in biology and medicine; gene regulatory networks; sensory prosthetics; human balance control; rehabilitation engineering.

Edward Damiano, PhD: integrated cellular and extracellular biomechanics; biofluid dynamics; microcirculation; vestibular biomechanics; closed loop blood-glucose regulation.

Charles DeLisi, PhD: analysis of DNA function; protein structure; optimization algorithms; neural net applications to molecular biology; drug and vaccine design, membrane biophysics.

Carlo J. De Luca, PhD: neuromuscular signals and controls; rehabilitation engineering.

Micah Dembo, PhD: statistical mechanics in biological systems, cellular information processing and signal transduction; thermodynamics and mechanics of cell adhesion; biophysics of cell deformation; active motility.

Solomon R. Eisenberg, ScD: electrically mediated phenomena in tissues and biopolymers.

Evan A. Evans, PhD: nano-microscale mechanics; ultrasensitive force probes and extreme resolution optical techniques; material properties of cellular structure; role of structural forces in cell biochemistry.

Maxim Frank-Kamenetskii, PhD: DNA structures; DNA topology; DNA functioning; new drugs interacting with DNA.

James Galagan, PhD: develop efficient and accurate methodologies for the analysis of genomic data, with a particular focus on infectious diseases.

Timothy S. Gardner, PhD: development of tools for identifying and controlling the genetic circuitry underlying the behavior of living organisms. (on leave)

Mark W. Grinstaff, PhD: biomaterials, tissue engineering, drug delivery, macromolecular chemistry and engineering self-assembly, nanodevices.

Andrew C. Jackson, PhD: respiratory physiology; respiratory mechanics.

Simon Kasif, PhD: bioinformatics, computational genomics algorithm design, artificial intelligence, high performance systems.

Kenneth R. Lutchen, PhD: structure-function relations in mechanics and ventilation; linear and nonlinear systems identification; optimal design; minimally invasive diagnostics.

Amit Meller, PhD: nonpore force spectroscopy of RNA folding kinetics, DNA switches and transcription initiation kinetics, RNA helicases activity, mapping transcription factors interaction with DNA, ultra-fast DNA sequencing, novel optical methods for single molecule detection.

Jerome C. Mertz, PhD: development of new microscopy techniques for biological imaging; applications of two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF) microscopy for deep imaging in brain tissue and visualization of endogenous fluorescence for clinical applications; applications of second-harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy for cell membrane potential imaging and the photocontrol of chromophore orientation dynamics in membranes; investigation of interferometric contrast mechanisms based on optical coherence tomography (OCT) or nonlinear detection.

David C. Mountain, Jr., PhD: auditory information processing, sensory biophysics, computer simulation; biomedical electronics; and biomedical signal processing.

C. L. Passaglia, PhD: describe the receptive field properties of retinal ganglion cells; develop models that accurately simulate retinal information processing and encoding; characterize the effects of retinal disease on ganglion cell physiology and morphology.

Kamal Sen, PhD: auditory neurophysiology, birdsong, neural coding, natural sounds, computational neuroscience.

Cassandra L. Smith, PhD: development of novel methods for mapping and sequencing of large and small genomes; molecular comparisons of closely related genomes; the genetic basis of complex traits.

Michael Smith, PhD: cellular mechanotransduction through the extracelllar matrix; fibronectin structural biology; microfabricated surfaces for engineering cell function.

Temple F. Smith, PhD: syntactic and semantic structure of the genetic information in biomolecular sequences, structures and their evolution.

Dimitrije Stamenovic, PhD: respiratory mechanics; rheology of soft tissues; mechanics of foamlike structures and cell mechanics.

Béla Suki, PhD: mechanical properties of living tissues; the ensemble behavior of complex biological systems; non-linearities in biological systems.

Thomas Szabo, PhD: medical imaging, diagnostic ultrasound, tissue characterization, transduction, biomedical signal processing, wave propagation, nonlinear acoustics.

Joe Tien, PhD: application of microlithography to biology; complexity and morphogenesis; dynamics of cell signaling; living hybrid interfaces; self-assembled and self-organizing structures.

Lucia M. Vaina, PhD, ScD: computational visual neuroscience; biological and computational learning; functional and structural neuroimaging.

Sandor Vajda, PhD: scientific computing; computational chemistry; combinatorial optimization; molecular biology; protein and peptide structure determination.

Herbert F. Voigt, PhD: auditory neurophysiology; neural circuitry, neural modeling.

Joyce Y. Wong, PhD: biomaterials, tailoring cell-material interfaces for drug delivery and tissue engineering applications; direct measurement of biological interactions.

Research Interests of the Research Faculty

Natalia Broude, PhD: functional genomics, structure/function relationships in nucleic acids, development of advanced methods for genomic studies.

Mario Cabodi, PhD: microfluidic devices; tissue engineering and biomaterials.

Daniel Ehrlich, PhD: optics, lithography, biosensors and biomolecular assays, with a current emphasis on microfluidic instruments for high-content, high-throughput cell-based assays and deep-UV imaging.

Dymtro Kozakov, PhD: (1) development of protein-protein and protein-ligand docking algorithms, (2) development of fast and efficient scoring functions for screening large numbers of potential docked complexes, (3) development protein homology models suitable for docking.

Thomas Szabo, PhD: medical imaging, diagnostic ultrasound, tissue characterization, transduction, biomedical signal processing, wave propagation, nonlinear acoustics.

Research Interests of Affiliated Faculty

Pierre Dupont, PhD: robotic kinematics, dynamics and controls, medical applications of robotics, image guidance of minimally invasive surgery.

Thomas Einhorn, MD: hip and knee replacement and reconstructive surgery, treatment of metabolic disease, orthopaedic trauma surgery.

Shayamsunder Erramilli, PhD: development of infrared and raman microscopy for imaging biological samples, using intrinsic contract mechanisms; applications of scanning near-field infrared microscopy for imaging single living cells, with a view to understanding the contribution of membrane lipids to the physics of cell motion; application of high-resolution vibrational microscopy for screening pathological tissue; specifically seeking to correlate vibrational microscopy data with synchrotron x-ray scattering data; development of vibrational infrared pump-probe 2-D spectroscopy for the study of biomolecules; development of novel infrared fibers (silver halide) and quantum cascade laser sources for biomedical applications; development of quantum raman microscopy using entangled photons.

Bennett Goldberg, PhD: low- and room-temperature near-field scanning optical microscopy and spectroscopy in semiconductors and biological systems; ultra-high spatial resolution combined with time-resolved spectroscopy provide new ways of examining mesoscopic systems; magneto-optics and magneto-transport of two- and one-dimensional electron systems are used to examin spin-textures in interacting electrons.

Lee Goldstein, MD, PhD: understanding the role of abnormal protein aggregation in chronic degenerative disorders of aging including Alzheimer’s disease, age-related cataracts, and other diseases that involve pathogenic protein aggregation.

Stephen Grossberg, PhD: vision, audition, language, learning and memory, reward and motivation, cognition, development, sensory-motor control, mental disorders, applications.

Frank Guarnieri, PhD: collaborative research with Professor Sandor Vajda in the Biomolecular Engineering Research Center.

James A. Hamilton, PhD: novel approaches to biomedical problems by integrating physical-chemical and physiological/biochemical approaches complemented with molecular modeling, molecular biology, and other cell biology methods.

Allyn E. Hubbard, PhD: auditory physiology; experiments and modeling; neurocomputing; VLSI in biomedical applications; biosensors.

Hernan Jara, PhD: biomedical imaging; atomic, molecular, and laser physics.

W. Clement Karl, PhD: multiresolution statistical signal and image processing; geometric estimation.

Catherine Klapperich, PhD: nanomechanics of hydrated biomaterials; gene expression in cells at the cell-biomaterial interface; microfluidic device design.

Nancy Koppel, PhD: dynamics of the nervous system especially rhythmic behavior of networks of neurons, how dynamical properties of local networks help to filter and transform the patterned input from other parts of the nervous system.

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Elise F. Morgan, PhD: mechanical behavior of biological materials, mechanical stimulation of tissue differentiation, micromechanics of multiscale media, damage mechanics.

Hamid S. Nawab, PhD: signal processing for brain signals from electrical transmissions of neural activity; signal processing for cognition signals from mutually interacting physical stimuli of human perception; computational signal processing; artificial intelligence for signal processing; short-time and short-space signal processing.

Matthew Nuggent, PhD: response of tissues to injury and disease, design and use of polymer-based controlled drug delivery systems, tissue engineering, and the development of computational models of dynamic biological processes.

Tyrone Porter, PhD: development of targeted ultrasound contrast agents for image enhancement (molecular imaging), perfusion imaging, and image-guided drug delivery; ultrasound-enhanced transport of drugs and genes across cell membranes; ultrasound-enhanced drug activity (i.e., chemotherapy, thrombolytics); tissue response to acousto-mechanical forces (apoptosis, wound healing, gene expression, etc.); ultrasound and polymers: ultrasound-induced release of therapeutics from polymeric biomaterials, modification of polymer structure and/or function due to energy deposition from ultrasound.

Arthur Rosenthal, PhD: design, development, marketing, and entrepreneurship in biomedical engineering.

Daniel Segre, PhD: the evolutionary dynamics of biological networks, in particular in the interplay between response to genetic and environmental perturbations, genomic-level functional organization, and optimal adaptation; our goals include developing constraint-based models to study the regulatory and evolutionary dynamics of metabolic networks across different organisms, cell types, and interacting cell populations.

Barbara Shinn-Cunningham, PhD: binaural and spatial hearing, perceptual effects of echoes and reverberation, speech and signal intelligibility in noise and reverberation, source segregation, auditory and cross-modal attention, plasticity and learning in spatial perception.

Stelios Smirnakis, PhD: collaborative research with Professor Lucia M. Vaina.

H. Eugene Stanley, PhD: application of statistical physics to understanding and preventing diseases related to protein misfolding, such as Alzheimer’s disease; econophysics: using statistical physics concepts to better understand economic questions, physical mechanisms in liquid water, threat networks and threatened networks: stabilization and immunization of networks.

Martin Steffen, PhD: developing the tools of systems biology for mammalian cells; currently emphasizing the technique of mass spectrometry; our guiding biological focus is cancer biology, and our interests are both at the level of basic research and clinical application; specifically, we wish to characterize proteomic differences (identities, amounts, PTMs, splice forms) between normal and diseased tissue; we will also examine serum samples from donors with and without cancer as part of an effort to identify proteins that behave as early indicators of tumor development.

Malvin C. Teich, PhD: wavelet analysis of fractal biological signals; neural coding; auditory and visual psychophysics; quantum imaging.

M. Selim Ünlü, PhD: research in optical characterization and nanophotonics (OCN) laboratory focuses on developing and applying advanced optical characterization techniques to the study of solid-state and biological phenomena at the nanoscale; nanophotonics addresses a broad spectrum of optics on the nanometer scale covering technology and basic science; compared to the behavior of isolated molecules or bulk materials; the behavior of nanostructures exhibit important physical properties not necessarily predictable from observations of either individual constituents or large ensembles.

D. Matthew Wachowiak, PhD: odor coding, olfactory information processing, imaging, temporal dynamics of neural activity, relationship between sampling behavior and neural coding.

Zhiping Weng, PhD: bioinformatics, DNA and protein sequence analysis.

John A. White, PhD: non-linear membrane conductances in neutrons; modulation of ion channels; dynamics of neuronal networks.

Brandon Yu Xia, PhD: computational structural and systems biology; we develop computational techniques to model the structure, function, and evolution of complex bio-molecular systems, such as proteins and protein networks; specific projects include: modeling and simulation of proteins and protein networks; comparative and evolutionary analysis of proteins and protein networks; protein sequence-structure-function relationships; prediction of protein structure and function.

Katherine Yanhang Zhang, PhD: mechanical behavior of soft biological tissue, cardiovascular mechanics, multi-scale modeling of biological composites, micro- and nano-mechanics of thin film devices.

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