The Green Group is the biomaterials and drug delivery laboratory in the Biomedical Engineering Department at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Our broad research interests are in cellular engineering and in nanobiotechnology. We are particularly interested in biomaterials, controlled drug delivery, stem cells, gene therapy, and immunobioengineering. We are working on the chemistry/biology/engineering interface to answer fundamental scientific questions and create innovative technologies and therapeutics that can directly benefit human health.

The Division of Maternal-Fetal Medicine is engaged in clinical, basic bench and epidemiological research as one of its primary missions. Our strength lies in the expertise and diverse interests of our faculty, as well as in the collaborations with multiple other disciplines and departments throughout the School of Medicine, The Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Biomedical Engineering. The strong research infrastructure of the Johns Hopkins University forms a solid foundation for the success of our integrated research program for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.

The Grayson Lab focuses on craniofacial and orthopaedic tissue engineering. Our research addresses the challenges associated with spatio-temporal control of stem cell fate in order to engineer complex tissue constructs. We are developing innovative methods to guide stem cell differentiation patterns and create patient-specific grafts with functional biological and mechanical characteristics. We employ engineering techniques to accurately control growth factor delivery to cells in biomaterial scaffolds as well as to design advanced bioreactors capable of maintaining cell viability in large tissue constructs. These technologies are used to enable precise control of the cellular microenvironment and uniquely address fundamental questions regarding the application of biophysical cues to regulate stem cell differentiation.

The goal of research in the Beer Lab is to understand how gene regulatory information is encoded in genomic DNA sequence. Our work uses functional genomics DNase-seq, ChIP-seq, RNA-seq, and chromatin state data to computationally identify combinations of transcription factor binding sites that operate to define the activity of cell-type specific enhancers. We are currently focused on improving SVM methodology by including more general sequence features and constraints predicting the impact of SNPs on enhancer activity (delta-SVM) and GWAS association for specific diseases, experimentally assessing the predicted impact of regulatory element mutation in mammalian cells, systematically determining regulatory element logic from ENCODE human and mouse data, and using this sequence based regulatory code to assess common modes of regulatory element evolution and variation.

The mission of the Elisseeff Lab is to engineer technologies to repair lost tissues. We aim to bridge academic research and technology discovery to treat patients and address clinically relevant challenges related to tissue engineering. To accomplish this goal we are developing and enabling materials, studying biomaterial structure-function relationships and investigating mechanisms of tissue development to practically rebuild tissues. The general approach of tissue engineering is to place cells on a biomaterial scaffold that is designed to provide the appropriate signals to promote tissue development and ultimately restore normal tissue function in vivo. Understanding mechanisms of cellular interactions (both cell-cell and cell-material) and tissue development on scaffolds is critical to advancement of the field, particularly in applications employing stem cells. Translation of technologies to tissue-specific sites and diseased environments is key to better design, understanding, and ultimately efficacy of tissue repair strategies. We desire to translate clinically practical strategies, in the form of biomaterials/medical devices, to guide and enhance the body's natural capacity for repair. To accomplish the interdisciplinary challenge of regenerative medicine research, we maintain a synergistic balance of basic and applied/translational research.

We are continually in motion. This self-motion is sensed by the vestibular system, which contributes to an impressive range of brain functions, from the most automatic reflexes to spatial perception and motor coordination. The objective of Dr. Cullen's lab's research program is to understand the mechanisms by which self-motion (vestibular) information is encoded and then integrated with signals from other modalities to ensure accurate perception and control of gaze and posture. Our studies investigate the sensorimotor transformations required for the control of movement, by tracing the coding of vestibular stimuli from peripheral afferents, to behaviorally-contingent responses in central pathways, to the readout of accurate perception and behavior. Our experimental approach is multidisciplinary and includes a combination of behavioral, neurophysiological and computational approaches in alert behaving non-human primates and mice. Funding for the laboratory has been and is provided by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), The National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), FQRNT / FQRSC (Quebec).

Research in the Quantitative Imaging Technologies lab — a component of the Imaging for Surgery, Therapy and Radiology (I-STAR) Lab — focuses on novel technologies to derive accurate structural and physiological measurements from medical images. Our team works on optimization of imaging systems and algorithms to support a variety of quantitative applications, with recent focus on orthopedics and bone health. For example, we have developed an ultra-high resolution imaging chain for an orthopedic CT system to enable in-vivo measurements of bone microstructure. Our interests also include automated methods to extract quantitative information from images, including anatomical and micro-structural measurements, and shape analysis.

The mission and interest of the neuroengineering and Biomedical Instrumentation Lab is to develop novel instrumentation and technologies to study the brain at several levels--from single cell to the whole brain--with the goal of translating the work into practical research and clinical applications. Our personnel include diverse, independent-minded and entrepreneurial students, post docs, and research faculty who base their research on modern microfabrication, stem cell biology, electrophysiology, signal processing, image processing, and integrated circuit design technologies.

Led by Drs. Nicholas Theodore and Amir Manbachi, the HEPIUS team unites neurosurgeons, biomedical engineers, scientists, radiologists and other physicians to treat and diagnose spinal cord injuries

Research in the Ruth Faden Lab focuses on biomedical ethics and health policy. Our specific areas of interest include justice theory; national and global challenges in learning health care systems, health-system design and priority setting; access global investments benefits in biomedical research; and ethical challenges in biomedical science and women’s health.