Faculty News
Jennifer Bhatnagar Featured in The Brink
Dr. Jennifer Bhatnagar of Biology and MCBB, along with Dr. Pamela Templer of Biology and Dr. Lucy Hutyra of Earth & Environment, were recently featured in The Brink, which delivers the latest news about research and discoveries from faculties and students.
Led by Bhatnagar, their research focuses on the reasoning behind why city trees grow significantly faster than their rural counterparts. Their effort has won national recognition, and the W. M. Keck Foundation will provide them with $1 million to fund their research. The Keck Foundation's programs support outstanding science, engineering, and medical research, focusing on novel proposals that strive to break new ground.
The Brink spoke with Bhatnagar to learn more about the survival instincts of urban trees, the societal importance of preservation efforts, and why Keck’s recognition matters. Here's a look into their interview:
The Brink: What’s the goal of your project and how will you be conducting your study?
Bhatnagar: Recently, my colleagues, Lucy Hutyra and Pamela Templer, discovered that urban trees grow four times faster than rural trees, despite a multitude of environmental stressors in cities and the loss of typical belowground mechanisms for trees to acquire nutrients, tolerate stress, and gain protection from pathogens. The goal of our project is to understand exactly how it is that trees grow faster in cities. We will test the hypothesis that urban trees operate by a different “rule of life” than rural trees, shifting their survival strategies from belowground roots to aboveground canopies, taking advantage of aboveground atmospheric pollution as a source of nutrients, water, and stress protection to support faster tree growth...
Read more about their research and Bhatnagar's interview with The Brink here.
Muhammad Zaman Featured in The Brink
Dr. Muhammad Zaman, a BU College of Engineering professor of biomedical engineering who studies antimicrobial resistance and refugee and migrant health, was recently featured in The Brink.
In "Microplastics Could Be Fueling Antibiotic Resistance, BU Study Finds," a team of Boston University researchers led by Zaman found that bacteria exposed to microplastics became resistant to multiple types of antibiotics commonly used to treat infections. They say this is especially concerning for people in high-density, impoverished areas like refugee settlements, where discarded plastic piles up and bacterial infections spread easily.
“We’re demonstrating that the presence of plastics is doing a whole lot more than just providing a surface for the bacteria to stick—they are leading to the development of resistant organisms,” Zaman says. He directs BU’s Center on Forced Displacement, which has a mission to improve the lives of displaced people around the world. Past research has found that refugees, asylum seekers, and forcibly displaced populations are at an increased risk of contracting drug-resistant infections, due to living in overcrowded camps and having heightened barriers to receiving healthcare.
Read more about the study here.
Lynne Chantranupong Receives 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship
Dr. Lynne Chantranupong recently received the 2025 Sloan Research Fellowship. The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation recognizes standout young scientists whose work is promising and innovative. The winners each receive $75,000 over two years.
When Dr. Chantranupong joined the BU's faculty in January 2024, she launched multiple research projects to investigate cellular mechanisms in the brain. One of her focuses is elucidating how a specialized part of the cell, called the lysosome, gets rid of waste, and how this waste differs across neurons.
She recently started collaborating with Dr. Ji-Xin Cheng to image the contents of a single lysosome at higher resolutions. The Sloan Foundation award will support their collaboration and bolster Dr. Chantranupong’s ongoing research projects.
Read the full announcement here.
Congratulations, Dr. Chantranupong!
Five MCBB Faculty Receive 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Awards
Five MCBB Faculty are part of three groups to win 2024 Rajen Kilachand Fund for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering Awards. The Fund, launched in 2017, has awarded $14 million to support projects that have advanced science, built collaborative structures for interdisciplinary research, and expanded funding opportunities. Learn about their projects below.
Dr. Wilson Wong and Dr. Florian Douam (BU School of Medicine), along with Dr. Alexander Green, Dr. Mark Grinstaff (BU College of Engineering), and Dr. Ahmad Khalil hope to to pioneer a new tool for fighting future pandemics.
About a year ago, Dr. Wong and Dr. Grinstaff discovered a novel way to modify saRNA, a breakthrough they’ve since used to create a more effective COVID-19 vaccine in collaboration with Dr. Douam. Combining this breakthrough with Dr. Khalil’s nanobody discovery platform and computational tools designed by Dr. Green, the team aims to create scalable, cost-effective, and rapidly deployable solutions for viral prevention and treatment.
Dr. Wong is leading the project with Dr. Douam; Dr. Green, Dr. Grinstaff, and Dr. Khalil are coinvestigators.
Dr. Joe Larkin and Dr. Mary Dunlop, along with Dr. Douglas Holmes and Dr. Harold Park, are leading innovative efforts to address the urgent global challenge of antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance poses a serious global health threat, with bacteria evolving faster than new drugs can be developed.
The team's project focuses on horizontal gene transfer and the single-cell level events that are involved in making an individual bacterium transition from being drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Using optogenetics, they aim to trigger and observe this process in real time, offering novel insights into how bacteria transition from drug-susceptible to drug-resistant. Their innovative work could lead to groundbreaking strategies to combat the spread of antibiotic resistance.
Read the full announcement here.
Congratulations, everyone!
Dr. Alexander Green Receives 2024 National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award
Dr. Alexander Green, an Associate Professor for Biomedical Engineering in the Green Lab, received the 2024 National Institutes of Health Director’s Transformative Research Award.
The Transformative Research Award focuses on significance and innovativeness where the proposed project must address a significant problem and be bold, highly innovative, and transformative. The proposal must be high-risk, high-reward, and would not be funded through a conventional NIH funding mechanism. Lastly, the application will be anonymized to be reviewed by the NIH staff.
In Green's research, he hopes that by tracking the forces involved when cells interact with one another, like in cell-based cancer therapies, he can better control their behavior and pave the way for more potent disease treatments. It’s an out-there, novel idea—and it could fizzle or it could change lives. But Green’s chances of success have just been given a major boost.
Green is sharing the award’s $7.2 million funding with two researchers from Yale University, Julien Berro, and Xiaolei Su, and he says their proposed cell forces project would typically be a tough one to win backing for—all promise with, so far, little proof that it’ll work.
Green is just the third BU researcher to be given the honor, behind Bela Suki, an ENG professor of biomedical engineering, and Steve Ramirez (CAS’10), a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of psychological and brain sciences.
Read more here.
Congratulations Dr. Alexander Green!
Dr. Brian Cleary Receives Career Development Professorship
Excerpt from The Brink "Career Development Professorships Awarded to Five BU Researchers"
They’re scholars of Latin American literature and Asian history, experts in biomedical engineering and computing, organic chemistry, and biology—and now, five rising star Boston University faculty are also winners of prestigious Career Development Professorships. The high-caliber awards, given annually by BU’s Office of the Provost, recognizes “talented junior educators emerging as future leaders within their respective fields.”
The professorships provide stipends for the recipients’ salaries and research for the next three years. The awards are named in honor of the donors and alumni who fund them, with winners nominated by their respective deans and selected by the provost’s office.
“Our current cohort of Career Development Professors are incredibly impressive both in terms of the breadth of their work and the impact they have already had on their fields. They bring energy, exciting new ideas, and fresh approaches to their research and teaching,” says Gloria Waters, University provost and chief academic officer. “We are grateful to our generous donors and alumni for their support and shared belief in the promise these rising colleagues present.”
This year’s Career Development Professors are:
Shibulal Family Career Development Professorship, established by BU Trustee S. D. Shibulal (MET’88)
Brian Cleary, a Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences assistant professor, who holds appointments in biology and biomedical engineering, investigates the nature of molecular, cellular, and tissue processes by integrating computational and algorithmic tools into biology research. Called “a deep thinker and fearless leader-in-the-making,” by his nominator, Azer Bestavros, a William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and associate provost for BU’s Faculty of Computing & Data Sciences, Cleary “truly embraces the integrative, cross-cutting culture of CDS and embodies the qualities needed to be a leading innovator in data science.”
Read more here.
Congratulations Dr. Brian Cleary!
Dr. Mary Dunlop Receives New BU Postdoctoral Awards Excellence in Mentorship and Research
Excerpt from The Brink "New BU Postdoctoral Awards Celebrate Excellence in Mentorship and Research"
When postdoctoral researcher Jean-Baptiste Lugagne began applying to faculty positions last year, he steeled himself for a daunting process. In an intensely competitive job market, university search committees seek candidates who can demonstrate vast skill sets beyond their field-specific expertise, from teaching to grant writing to lab management.
But Lugagne had a secret weapon to help him through the job search: his faculty mentor, Mary Dunlop. A Boston University College of Engineering associate professor of biomedical engineering, Dunlop guided Lugagne in refining his research proposal, gave him feedback on his interview materials, and even helped him organize a practice “chalk talk” with other faculty to ensure he was prepared for his presentations to search committees. The preparation paid off: Lugagne is joining the University of Oxford as an assistant professor of engineering science next year.
Now, in recognition of her deep commitment to the professional and personal development of postdoctoral researchers at BU, Dunlop has been awarded the University’s first-ever Award for Excellence in Mentoring Postdocs. She was honored at BU’s National Postdoc Appreciation celebration.
“These awards reflect the critical contributions of our postdocs and their mentors,” says Pallavi Eswara, director of postdoctoral affairs at BU. “Our postdocs are doing excellent research, but they are also contributing to our research community in countless other ways, as teachers, mentors, DEI leaders, and innovators.”
Read more here.
Congratulations Dr. Mary Dunlop!
Michelle Teplensky Receives Beckman Young Investigator Award
Dr. Michelle Teplensky was recently named one of the 2024 Beckman Young Investigators. She and her team will receive $600,000 over four years to engineer versatile vaccine responses through nanomaterial design, with implications for the treatment of not only the flu but also other infectious diseases including the viruses that cause COVID-19, HIV, and more.
The Beckman Young Investigator (BYI) Program provides research support to the most promising young faculty members in the early stages of their academic careers in the chemical and life sciences, particularly to foster the invention of methods, instruments and materials that will open up new avenues of research in science.
Read a detailed announcement here.
Congratulations, Dr. Michelle Teplensky!
Green Lab Publishes Patent for Detecting Nucleic Acids
Milad Babaei, MCBB PhD student of the Green Lab, and Dr. Zhaoqing Yan (GRS '23), along with their mentor, Dr. Alexander Green, are co-authors on a recently published patent. This patent, titled "Isothermal Nucleic Acid Detection Assays and Uses Thereof" by Green et al. (US Patent 2023/0313283, October 2, 2023), describes rapid methods for detecting nucleic acids, from viruses to circulating mRNAs, in low-cost portable formats.
Nucleic acids, such as DNA and RNA, play a crucial role in genetic information. "Isothermal" refers to processes that occur at a constant temperature. In the context of nucleic acid detection, isothermal assays are methods that allow the amplification and detection of nucleic acids at a constant temperature without the need for thermal cycling, as in PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction).
The team is currently expanding its panel of detection by developing lateral flow strips that can spontaneously probe for multiple targets using multiple test lines. This capability is crucial for the future of detecting and analyzing nucleic acids, which are fundamental in various fields, including medical diagnostics, research, and biotechnology.
Congratulations, Dr. Alexander Green, Milad Babaei, and Dr. Zhaoqing Yan!
Michelle Teplensky Named AIChE’s 35 Under 35
Dr. Michelle Teplensky was recently named 2023 AIChE's (American Institute of Chemical Engineers) 35 under 35. AIChE honors 35 chemical engineering professionals who have mad great contributions to the field in seven categories, bioengineering, chemicals and materials, education and outreach, energy and environment, innovation and entrepreneurship, leadership. and safety. Teplensky was recognized under the bioengineering category.
Teplensky and her research group focuses on engineering nanotechnology to control immunological cell connectivity, processing, and communication by design. In doing so, they elucidate fundamentals about cellular events and leverage this knowledge to develop improved therapeutics and vaccines that can impact the treatment of cancer and infectious disease. Their work is highly interdisciplinary, and bridges the fields of engineering, chemistry, nanotechnology, immunology, and biomaterials. By sitting at this interface, we are able to develop and incorporate synthetic nanoscale advances to control immunological activity and elucidate design rules that have widespread impacts on therapeutic development. She hopes that the students trained in her lab enter their careers feeling inspired.
Teplensky loves to shop at Stew Leonard’s, and she has become an avid fan of Boston Univ.’s hockey team. Her family has a tradition of buying and completing a puzzle on every vacation.
Congratulations, Michelle Teplensky!