piotrowski-daspit-headshot

Alexandra S. Piotrowski-Daspit, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor, Biomedical Engineering

Additional Title(s)

Assistant Professor, Internal Medicine – Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Division

Primary Website

DYnamic NAnoMEDicines Lab

Education

Dr. Piotrowski-Daspit has an SB in Chemical-Biological Engineering and Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and master’s and PhD degrees in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Princeton University. She also trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Engineering at Yale University.

Research Interests

Her laboratory focuses on engineering polymeric nanoparticles for nucleic acid delivery to the lungs, taking advantage of combinatorial polymer vehicle libraries, high-throughput in vivo screening tools, and three-dimensional cell culture models that recapitulate disease physiology. The goal is to elucidate the structure-function relationships that drive the interactions between nanomedicines and the  biological barriers they encounter when administered in vivo at the organism, tissue, and cell levels. Ultimately, this work will contribute to the rational design of delivery vehicles for specific disease targets and aid in the clinical translation of therapeutics. The technology-driven approach will be applicable to the treatment of many hereditary diseases, with an initial focus on cystic fibrosis.

Awards