shea-headshot

Lonnie Shea, Ph.D.

Steven A. Goldstein Collegiate Professor, Biomedical Engineering
Biomedical Engineering (BME)/People/Faculty/Core faculty/Lonnie Shea, Ph.D.

email

[email protected]

Location

NCRC, Building 520, Room 3318
1600 Huron Parkway
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Phone

(734) 647-6319

Primary Website

Shea Lab

Research Interests

The Shea Lab works at the intersection of regenerative medicine, immune engineering, and precision health. For regenerative medicine, biomaterials combined with drug and gene delivery are applied to control the local microenvironment for directing tissue growth or regeneration. His projects include islet transplantation for diabetes therapy and nerve regeneration for treating paralysis. Immune engineering is focused on strategies to modulate undesired immune responses, such as autoimmune diseases, allergies, cancer, inflammation, and allogeneic cell and organ transplantation. Precision health research is developing strategies for the early detection of diseases and monitoring of response to therapies, such as cancer or autoimmunity. Novel systems biology approaches are being applied to molecularly dissect normal and abnormal tissue functions to identify key drivers of either normal responses or disease progression.

Research Areas:

Artificial Organs, Bio-Micro Nanotechnology and Molecular Engineering, Bio-Nanotechnology, Biomaterials, Biomedical Computation and Modeling, Cancer, Drug Delivery and Therapeutics, Immunology, Molecular and Cellular Biomechanics, Neural Engineering, Neurological Disorders, Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine

Immunoengineering, 

Regenerative medicine

Systems biology

Publications

Teaching

  • BME 321

Curriculum Vitae

Biography

Lonnie Shea is the Steven A. Goldstein Collegiate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan (U-M), which is joint between the College of Engineering and the School of Medicine. He received his PhD in chemical engineering and scientific computing from U-M in 1997, working with Professor Jennifer Linderman. He then served as a postdoctoral fellow with then Chemical Engineering Professor David Mooney in the Department of Biologic and Materials Science at the U-M Dental School.

Shea was recruited to Northwestern University’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and was on the faculty from 1999 to 2014. In 2014, Shea returned to the University of Michigan as chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, with his recruitment coinciding with the endowment of the chair position by William and Valerie Hall. His term as chair completed on June 30, 2021. He is the Steven A. Goldstein Collegiate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and is an internationally recognized researcher at the interface of regenerative medicine, drug and gene delivery, and immune-engineering, whose focus is on preventing tissue degeneration or promoting tissue regeneration. His projects include islet transplantation for diabetes therapies, nerve regeneration for treating paralysis, and diagnostics for immune dysfunction in cancer and autoimmunity. He is currently PI or co-PI on multiple NIH grants. Shea has published ≈ 300 manuscripts. He served as director of Northwestern’s NIH Biotechnology Training Grant. He has received the Clemson Award from the Society for Biomaterials, and also the recipient of their 2021 Technology Innovation and Development Award for his development of nanoparticles for tolerance in autoimmune disease. He was awarded the 2025 Steven Attwood Award from the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan. Shea is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES), a member of the editorial boards for multiple journals such as Molecular Therapy, Biotechnology and Bioengineering, and the Journal of Immunology and Regenerative Medicine.