BME Seminar: Joseph Irudayaraj
Monday, February 13, 2023 - 12:00 p.m.
Joseph Irudayaraj
Founder Professor of Bioengineering and the Associate Director of Shared Resources
Cancer Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
"BME at UA - Looking Ahead and Beyond"
Keating 103 | Live on Zoom; Passcode: BearDown
Hosts: Dr. Beth Hutchinson and Dr. Shang Song
Instructor permission required for enrolled students to attend via Zoom
Persons with a disability may request a reasonable accommodation by contacting the Disability Resource Center at 621-3268 (V/TTY).
ABSTRACT: In this Research-Vision talk, a brief background of Dr. Irudayaraj’s training and experience relevant to leadership and collaborative research will be provided. His team has developed highly sensitive lateral flow biosensors for cancer monitoring and utilized fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and lifetime imaging techniques to monitor and quantify epigenetic modifications, mRNA splicing, protein kinetics, and signaling pathway dynamics in live cells. In this presentation, recent efforts on the spatiotemporal organization of heterochromatin corresponding to forces acting on the nuclei of cells passing through constricted channels will be discussed. An example of research translation wherein, the concept of oxygen nanobubbles originally developed to mitigate cancer hypoxia but presently modified to treat ischemic conditions in the retina will be highlighted. Dr. Irudayaraj’s leadership philosophy is one of a shared vision and purpose for Biomedical Engineering (BME) at the University of Arizona (UA). Central to the mission for advancing BME at UA is to establish strategic partnerships with the Colleges and centers/institutes at UA, business partners, and stakeholders in the community to propel the growth of biomedical engineering education and research enterprise. Overall growth also encompasses accomplishment of metrics in enrollment, recruitment, DEI efforts, academic excellence, ranking, and service to impact the HealthCare sector and improve the quality of life. Central to the vision is a well-rounded and innovative curriculum, student/faculty driven entrepreneurship efforts, collaborative training and center grants, strategic partnerships with the College of Medicine and College of Pharmacy, professional development opportunities, online/certificate programs, fundraising efforts, and a vibrant environment.
BIO: Professor Joseph Irudayaraj is the founder professor of bioengineering and the associate director of Shared Resources for the Cancer Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Prior to Illinois, he has spent over thirteen years in Purdue University and seven years at Penn State. At Purdue, he led the Bindley Bioscience Center for over five years as the interim deputy director. He is a recipient of the 2015 College of Engineering Researcher of the Year Award (the highest awarded to an engineering faculty during that year), Faculty Scholar award, and several Seed for Success awards (for collaborative grants over $1M both at Purdue and UIUC), teaching awards among others. He is a Fellow of AAAS, BMES, IAMBE, AIMBE, and Royal Chemical Society, and has chaired several NIH grant review panels, including SBIR panels. He is a standing member of P30, P42, and T32 review panels in NIEHS. He has mentored 42 graduate students, advised 50 postdoctoral and visiting scholars, and published 350+ refereed journal articles. He has taught courses in the areas of numerical methods, statistical methods, and bioinstrumentation. His research interests are in developing single cell technologies and nano tools to understand disease etiology for the detection and treatment of diseases. He also directs the “Environmental Effects and Cancer Toxicology” program, which has a significant emphasis on community development. His group is highly interdisciplinary with collaborations spanning major centers/institutes within UIUC and other institutions, including international partnerships. His overarching goal is to enable opportunities for a broader impact of the profession and institution to benefit stakeholders.