Tissue Systems Biology

Tissues are ecosystems of cells interacting within matrix environments. We study how the steady-state of tissues change during growth, aging, and disease.

Our experiments in this area teach us how tissues develop and  maintain homeostasis, how these processes fail in disease, and key signaling pathways or control circuits that can be leveraged for regenerative engineering.

Cell To Cell Communication

Our group specializes in the development of primary-source algorithms to study cellular connectivity. We probe tissue-level signaling architecture using principles of graph topology and systems data analysis.

This research helps us to synthesize biologic information across species, organs, and systems so that we may identify key signaling mechanisms governing tissue behavior. We seek to identify evolutionarily-conserved patterns of cell-to-cell communication fundamental to the regulation of tissue-scale behavior.

Lung Tissue Engineering

In vitro tissue-engineering allows us to test biologic principles that would be difficult to approach and/or impossible to investigate within living organisms. We engineer diverse pulmonary systems including organoids and whole organs, and compare their signaling architecture to native tissues.

The output from these experiments advance pulmonary regenerative medicine and lay a reliable, quantitative foundation for next-generation therapies targeting holistic tissue state.