Updates and Guidance
For operational updates and health guidance from the University, please visit the COVID-19 Resource Guide.
To learn more about our spring term, please visit the Updates for Students page.
For operational updates and health guidance from the University, please visit the COVID-19 Resource Guide.
To learn more about our spring term, please visit the Updates for Students page.
351 Engineering Terrace
Mail Code 8904
Gordana Vunjak-Novakovic's diverse team of engineers, clinicians, and scientists are developing innovative tissue engineering technologies for improving human health. Our Laboratory for Stem Cells and Tissue Engineering is interested in whole organ engineering for regenerative medicine, tissue models for biological research, and “organs-on-a-chip” platforms for disease modeling and drug development.
To this end, her team directs the human cell differentiation and assembly into functional tissues using a “cell-instructive” approach based on tissue-specific scaffolds (providing templates for tissue formation) and advanced bioreactors (providing environmental control, molecular and physical signaling). Her work has been published in Nature, Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Medicine, Nature Biomedical Engineering, Nature Communications, Nature Protocols, PNAS, Cell Stem Cell, Science Advances, and Science Translational Medicine, and is highly cited (h=126).
Vunjak-Novakovic’s laboratory is a home to the national Tissue Engineering Resource Center funded by NIH to foster tissue engineering for medical impact, and are actively collaborating with colleagues at both campuses of Columbia University, nationwide, and around the world. To translate their science into new therapeutic modalities, their lab has launched four biotech companies: epiBone (epibone. com), Tara (tarabiosystems.com), Xylyx Biosolutions (xylyxbio.com) and Immplacate (immplacatehealth.com) that are all based in New York City. Over the last 30 years, Vunjak-Novakovic has mentored over 150 trainees (postdocs, clinical fellows, MD/PhD and PhD students, junior faculty).
She has a BS, MS, and PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Belgrade and specialized in biomedical engineering as a Fulbright Fellow at MIT. She is a member of the Academia Europaea, Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Inventors, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.