Tara Deans
Georgia Institute of Technology, GA·Biomedical Engineering
Inflammation protects the body, but it must also stop on time. Neutrophils, the white blood cells that rush first to infections and injuries, must be shut down and cleared once the threat is gone.
- Fields
Biomedical Engineering
Engineering
Microbiology & Immunology
- Topics
synthetic biology
gene circuits
synthetic gene networks
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2028
What they work on
- Engineer synthetic gene networks that reprogram pluripotent stem cells to produce platelets with designed therapeutic functions.
- Harness platelets' natural granule storage, trafficking and release machinery to load and deliver bioactive cargo that modulates neutrophils.
- Build engineered platelets that actively terminate neutrophil function, for example by promoting apoptosis, to help resolve inflammation.
- Develop the system as a modular platform technology that can be adapted for therapeutic platelet production.
More about the research
Otherwise they prolong inflammation and damage nearby tissue. This shutdown normally happens through apoptosis, a programmed form of cell death. The project asks whether platelets, tiny cell fragments in the blood, could be engineered to deliver signals that end neutrophil activity on demand.
Why it matters
Inflammation that does not shut down damages tissue in many inflammatory diseases. Engineered platelets made from stem cells could one day deliver signals that switch off neutrophils at the right moment. This would offer a new way to treat inflammatory conditions. The genetic tools developed could also be adapted to make platelets that carry other therapeutic cargo.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Samira Musah
Duke University, NC·Biomedical Engineering·Early-career
Use human stem cell-derived kidney models, including organoids and organ-on-chip systems, to identify tunable molecular targets that let specific cell types sense injury and trigger tissue repair.
William Chen
University of South Dakota, SD·Biomedical Engineering
Engineer mouse bone marrow MSCs carrying synthetic genetic circuits that detect inflammatory signals, improve MSC survival and shift tissue inflammation from destructive to constructive, tested in cell, organoid and animal models.
Robert Campbell
Washington University in St Louis, MO·Medicine & Clinical Research
Determine how the mitochondrial calcium uniporter (MCU), the channel bringing calcium into mitochondria, controls platelet activation, procoagulant platelet formation and platelet-neutrophil aggregates, including signaling through the enzyme Syk.
The school
Georgia Institute of Technology: 50 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 572 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.