November 2023: Research by our group is presented at the 2023 AIChE Annual Meeting in Orlando.
September 2023: Funding is received from NSF for engineering vascularized scaffolds for the implantation of ontogenetically engineered pancreatic beta-cells.
August 2023: Aedan’s article on mathematical modeling of the hormonal response of pancreatic endocrine alpha- and beta-cells was published.
May 2023: Alex has successfully defended his Senior Honors thesis ‘Non-invasive in situ profiling of oxygen concentration within three-dimensional cellular aggregates‘!
May 2023: Aedan has successfully defended his Senior Honors thesis ‘Quantitative Analysis of Paracrine Interactions in Pancreatic Islets‘!
April 2023: Another win for team Lumilin Therapeutics, this time at the Skandalaris Venture Competition.
April 2023: Team Lumilin Therapeutics wins the Morgenthaler-Pavey Startup Competition!
March 2023: Zijing has successfully defended her PhD thesis ‘Optogenetic Engineering For Regulation Of Intracellular Cyclic Adenosine Monophosphate In Therapeutically Relevant Cell Systems‘!
November 2022: Demetris and Zijing present their research at the Annual Meeting of the AIChE in Phoenix, AZ.
January 2022: Omar successfully defended his MS thesis. Congratulations!
December 2021: The 2nd Optogenetic Technologies and Applications Conference took place bringing together experts from diverse fields in engineering and life sciences.
October 2021: Preeti’s manuscript on the proteomic analysis of exosomes harvested from human stem cells differentiating to cardiomyocytes is accepted for publication.
August 2021: Preeti successfully defends her PhD thesis research. Congratulations!
April 2021: Sylvia is the recipient of the 2021 Tufts Presidential Award for Civic Life.
March 2021: Sylvia is awarded an Environmental Research Fellowship by the Tufts Institute of the Environment (TIE).
February 2021: Prof. Tzanakakis is elected to the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows.
January 2021: Prof. Tzanakakis becomes a member of the Cell, Molecular and Developmental Biology faculty of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts University.
November 2020: At the 2020 Annual AIChE Meeting, our group presented research findings on human pluripotent stem cell bioprocessing for generating endoderm cells, optogenetic engineering of beta-cells, regenerating islet-derived (Reg) protein biology and stem cell population balance modeling.
November 2020: Sylvia won in the 2020 Tufts Gordon Institute Ideas Competition with a pitch for a technology based on optogenetic engineering of beta-cells.
September 2020: Our article is published describing the scalable xeno-free production of cardiomyocyte progeny from human pluripotent stem cells.
August 2020: Congratulations to Elena for successfully defending her PhD thesis on the non-xenogeneic generation of pancreatic progenitor cells from human stem cells in a scalable platform.
June 2020: New funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for studying near-infrared light-controlled beta-cells.
May 2020: Professor Tzanakakis has been recognized as a Full Member of Sigma Xi, The Scientific Research Honor Society.
April 2020: Congratulations to Sylvia, winner of the 2020 Robert P. Guertin Student Leadership Award!
March 2020: The laboratory receives funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for developing technologies integrating engineered beta-cells amenable to optogenetic control of insulin secretion with electronic components (with Prof. Sonkusale) for diabetes treatment.
January 2020: Research seminar at the Cell, Molecular & Developmental Biology Program of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Tufts.
December 2019: The first conference on Optogenetic Technologies and Applications was a great success. The event was sponsored by the Society of Biological Engineering of the AIChE.
November 2019: Press release on our work for the regulation of insulin secretion by pancreatic beta-cells using optogenetics.
September 2019: New article published from our group on ameliorating diabetes through optogenetic technology!
August 2019: Congratulations to Fan for his PhD thesis defense!
July 2019: Our team’s research findings on the control of pancreatic beta-cell function via optogenetics were presented at the Biochemical and Molecular Engineering XXI conference.
May 2019: Announcement of the conference on Optogenetic Technologies and Applications sponsored by the Society for Biological Engineering (SBE) of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AICHE).
April 2019: Prof. Tzanakakis received the award for Outstanding Faculty Contribution to Graduate Studies.
April 2019: Presented findings of our research on the engineering of cellular therapies for diabetes at the Department of Molecular Biology, University of Wyoming.
April 2019: Delivered a presentation at the University of Edinburgh on our research on the engineering of pancreatic beta-cells for enhancement of glucose-stimulated insulin secretion using light.
February 2019: Promotion to the rank of Professor was approved by the University Board of Trustees. It has been a great journey! This would not have been possible without all the former and present members of the laboratory, colleagues, and family.