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Laboratories

The research laboratories housed in the F. Joseph Halcomb III, M.D. Department of Biomedical Engineering and the investigators directing the labs are listed below. Click on the lab name to learn more.

Lab Descriptions

Bioanalytics and Integrative Bioengineering Laboratory (Guigen Zhang)
The lab focuses on biomedical research in areas including biosensor development, in-situ biomarker detection, integrated understanding of mechanical integrity of bone structures influenced by mechanical environment and oxygen/nutrient transport, characterization of tissues and implant devices, and computational bioengineering.

Biomaterials, Inflammation, and Tissue Engineering Laboratory (Ramkumar T. Annamalai)
The lab is broadly focused on tissue regeneration and vascularization using biomaterials and biofabrication strategies. Strategies to engineer or modulate immune responses for tissue regeneration are of particular interest. The lab employs an array of biomaterial, mammalian cell culture techniques, and animal models to develop translatable strategies.

Biomaterials and Soft Tissue Repair Laboratory (Mark Suckow)
The work of this laboratory is focused on applying biomaterials and related strategies to solve problems related to soft tissue repair.  Preclinical surgical models are used to study biomaterial approaches to challenges such as hernia repair, post-surgical adhesiogenesis, and wound repair.

Bio-Photonics Laboratory (Guoqiang Yu)
This laboratory develops optical spectroscopy/tomography for in-vivo measurements of blood flow, oxygenation and oxygen metabolism in normal and diseased tissues of animals and humans. The motivation is to explore the feasibility of optical instruments for the diagnosis of various diseases and longitudinal monitoring of therapies. The goal is to create a strong bio-photonics research and teaching program, which vertically integrates physics, optics, engineering and clinical applications.

Bone Quality Laboratory (David Pienkowski)
Mechanical testing of hard and soft tissues are the primary focus of this laboratory, two Instron servo-hydraulic mechanical testing systems provide compression, tension, bending and torsional testing capabilities of hard and soft tissue and a variety of prosthetic devices.

Cardiac Rhythm Laboratory (Abhijit Patwardhan)
The focus of research conducted in the rhythm dynamics laboratory is on the use of linear and non-linear systems and signal analysis techniques to investigate the dynamics of cardiovascular function.

Human Musculoskeletal Biomechanics Lab (Babak Bazrgari)
This research program focuses on the mechanical behaviors of the active neuromuscular and the passive musculoskeletal systems in the human body and aims at controlling and managing musculoskeletal disorders.

Molecular Imaging Laboratory (Fanny Chapelin)
The lab develops non-invasive magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) methods to track immune migration to foci of inflammation in different pathologies such as transplant rejection, autoimmune diseases and cancer. We also use MRI to investigate stem cell transplant fate.

Nanomedicine Laboratory (Sheng Tong)
The Nanomedicine Laboratory at the University of Kentucky is dedicated to the development of cutting-edge technologies for disease treatment. Our research falls into the broad fields of nanobiotechnology, immunoengineering, genome editing, and cancer therapy.

Neural Systems Laboratory (Sridhar Sunderam)
This lab focuses on the diagnosis of brain states using physiological measurements, modeling and signal analysis for applications in epilepsy therapy, sleep monitoring, neuroprosthetics and cognitive science. For more information, see the lab page.

Spectroscopic Imaging Laboratory (Caigang Zhu)
The Lab is motivated by multidisciplinary applications of novel optical techniques in cancer research. The central focus of the group’s research is to develop optical imaging tools including spectroscopy, microscopy, and spectral imaging platforms for biomedical applications related to tumor metabolism, hypoxia and angiogenesis. The research interests of this Lab include but not limited to vascular and metabolic imaging/spectroscopic techniques for cancer biology and radiation biology study.