Microscale Engineered Liver Tissues for Evaluating Chronic Toxicity of Environmental Toxicants

This project will explore the utility of our microscale human liver tissues for evaluating chronic toxicity of environmental compounds using various clinically-relevant biomarkers.

• Sangeeta Bhatia
  Associate Professor, Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences & Technology and Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences

Development of a High-Throughput DNA Damage Sensor for Environmental Health Studies

This project will exploit microtechnology derived from the semiconductor industry to create a “comet-chip” that will not only overcome problems in standardization, but will also permit high-throughput parallel processing of dozens of samples, rendering this assay useful in a broad range of clinical, epidemiological, and experimental settings.

• Bevin Engelward
  Associate Professor, Biological Engineering

Monitoring Low-Abundance Enzyme Activity by Preconcentration and Reaction in Micro/Nanofluidic Device

This project will test feasibility of using Nanofluidic preconcentrator as a novel method to reliably monitor low-abundance enzyme activities from complex mixtures. 

• Jongyoon Han
  Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering & Computer Science and Biological Engineering

Systems Biology Analysis of Nuclear and Membrane-Initiated Signaling by Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

This project will examine the actions of a panel of EDCs in the MCF-7 breast cancer line to address our hypothesis that EDCs regulate the proliferation/apoptosis cellular decision through a quantitatively integrated interplay among nuclear-initiated transcription events and membrane-initiated signaling to generate cellular network cross-talk which ultimately governs phenotypic behavior.

• Douglas Lauffenburger
  Whitaker Professor, Biological Engineering, Chemical Engineering and Biology, and Head, Department of Biological Engineering

A Clinical Study of a Base Excision-Repair Activity, Genetic Polymorphisms, and Chronic Inflammation

This project will examine the activity of the base excision repair (BER) enzyme AAG in IBD patients.  AAG can recognize and remove a number of DNA damaged bases generated during chronic inflammation.  This funding will allow this research to move towards clinical research and address this important health problem.

• Lisiane Meira
  Research Scientist, Center for Environmental Health Sciences