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Emerging leaders in biological engineering

New Content ItemOver the past decade, biological engineering has promoted the convergence of themes from multiple disciplines and has gained significant promise in integrating the principles of biology and engineering methodologies to address grand challenges in human health and the health of the planet. This thematic series in Journal of Biological Engineering highlights exciting new areas and emerging leaders who are addressing many of these challenges.

This collection was first launched in 2018 and is re-opening for new submissions in 2024.

Edited by Raj R Rao

Click here for an Editorial highlighting the thematic series.

Further information about the journal, including details of the aims and scope, can be found here.

How to submit:

Submissions of original Research Article and Review papers are invited, subject to editorial approval. Before submitting, please send a pre-submission enquiry to the collection editor Raj Rao (rajrao@uark.edu) including an abstract and short personal biography. 

Submission deadline: 30th June 2024

Articles once submitted will be subject to editorial triage and peer-review as standard for the journal. Collection content will be published continuously as part of the main journal and highlighted on the collection homepage as soon as it is ready.


  2. Epithelial-mesenchymal plasticity (EMP) involves bidirectional transitions between epithelial, mesenchymal and multiple intermediary hybrid epithelial/mesenchymal phenotypes. While the process of epithelial-me...

    Authors: Ayalur Raghu Subbalakshmi, Sarthak Sahoo, Prakruthi Manjunatha, Shaurya Goyal, Vignesh A Kasiviswanathan, Yeshwanth Mahesh, Soundharya Ramu, Isabelle McMullen, Jason A. Somarelli and Mohit Kumar Jolly
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2023 17:17
    Content type: Research Published on:

  3. Diabetic nephropathy, a kidney complication arising from diabetes, is the leading cause of death in diabetic patients. Unabated, the growing epidemic of diabetes is increasing instances of diabetic nephropathy...

    Authors: Haryana Y. Thomas and Ashlee N. Ford Versypt
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2022 16:19
    Content type: Review Published on:

  9. Neuromodulation of central and peripheral neural circuitry brings together neurobiologists and neural engineers to develop advanced neural interfaces to decode and recapitulate the information encoded in the n...

    Authors: Benjamin J. Seicol, Sebastian Bejarano, Nicholas Behnke and Liang Guo
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:67
    Content type: Review Published on:

  10. Significant rise in concentration of saline wastewater entering the treatment plants has been resulting in many problems in the biological treatment processes. On the other hand, the specific conditions of phy...

    Authors: Mostafa Tizghadam Ghazani and Alireza Taghdisian
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:64
    Content type: Research Published on:

  12. The purpose of this review is to assess the state-of-the-art fabrication methods, advances in genome editing, and the use of machine learning to shape the prospective growth in cardiac tissue engineering. Thos...

    Authors: Anh H. Nguyen, Paul Marsh, Lauren Schmiess-Heine, Peter J. Burke, Abraham Lee, Juhyun Lee and Hung Cao
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:57
    Content type: Review Published on:

  13. Traditional therapeutics and vaccines represent the bedrock of modern medicine, where isolated biochemical molecules or designed proteins have led to success in treating and preventing diseases. However, sever...

    Authors: Max Levy, Partha P. Chowdhury and Prashant Nagpal
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:48
    Content type: Review Published on:

  14. Metabolic labeling of proteins with non-canonical amino acids (ncAAs) provides unique bioorthogonal chemical groups during de novo synthesis by taking advantage of both endogenous and heterologous protein synt...

    Authors: Aya M. Saleh, Kristen M. Wilding, Sarah Calve, Bradley C. Bundy and Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:43
    Content type: Review Published on:

  16. The availability of renewable energy technologies is increasing dramatically across the globe thanks to their growing maturity. However, large scale electrical energy storage and retrieval will almost certainl...

    Authors: Farshid Salimijazi, Erika Parra and Buz Barstow
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:38
    Content type: Review Published on:

  18. In vitro three-dimensional (3D) microengineered tissue models have been the recent focus of pathophysiological studies, particularly in the field of cardiovascular research. These models, as classified by 3D b...

    Authors: Jaimeson Veldhuizen, Raymond Q. Migrino and Mehdi Nikkhah
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:29
    Content type: Review Published on:

  19. Capillaries within the microcirculation are essential for oxygen delivery and nutrient/waste exchange, among other critical functions. Microvascular bioengineering approaches have sought to recapitulate many k...

    Authors: Huaning Zhao and John C. Chappell
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:26
    Content type: Review Published on:

  20. Broad translational success of RNA interference (RNAi) technology depends on the development of effective delivery approaches. To that end, researchers have developed a variety of strategies, including chemica...

    Authors: Alex Eli Pottash, Christopher Kuffner, Madeleine Noonan-Shueh and Steven M. Jay
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:19
    Content type: Review Published on:

  27. The research community is intent on harnessing increasingly complex biological building blocks. At present, cells represent a highly functional component for integration into higher order systems. In this revi...

    Authors: Kara A. Davis, Pei-Jung Wu, Calvin F. Cahall, Cong Li, Anuhya Gottipati and Brad J. Berron
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:5
    Content type: Review Published on:

  28. The onset of cancer metastasis is the defining event in cancer progression when the disease is considered lethal. The ability of metastatic cancer cells to stay dormant for extended time periods and reawaken a...

    Authors: Shreyas S. Rao, Raghu Vamsi Kondapaneni and Akshay A. Narkhede
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2019 13:3
    Content type: Review Published on:

  31. Metastatic recurrence is a major hurdle to overcome for successful control of cancer-associated death. Residual tumor cells in the primary site, or disseminated tumor cells in secondary sites, can lie in a dor...

    Authors: Shantanu Pradhan, John L. Sperduto, Cindy J. Farino and John H. Slater
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:37
    Content type: Review Published on:

  32. The lymphatic system is a major circulatory system within the body, responsible for the transport of interstitial fluid, waste products, immune cells, and proteins. Compared to other physiological systems, the...

    Authors: Laura Alderfer, Alicia Wei and Donny Hanjaya-Putra
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:32
    Content type: Review Published on:

  33. Biological systems have complicated environmental conditions that vary both spatially and temporally. It becomes necessary to impose time-varying soluble factor concentrations to study such systems, including ...

    Authors: Joshua Garrison, Zidong Li, Barath Palanisamy, Ling Wang and Erkin Seker
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:31
    Content type: Research Published on:

  34. The retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) is essential to the health of the retina and the proper functioning of the photoreceptors. The RPE is rich in melanosomes, which contain the pigment melanin. Changes in RPE...

    Authors: Maryse Lapierre-Landry, Joseph Carroll and Melissa C. Skala
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:29
    Content type: Review Published on:

  35. Cell-based therapy has expanded its influence in cancer immunotherapy, regenerative medicine, and tissue engineering. Due to their secretory functions, differentiation capabilities, specific homing effects thr...

    Authors: Daniel Y. Lee, Byung-Hyun Cha, Minjin Jung, Angela S. Kim, David A. Bull and Young-Wook Won
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:28
    Content type: Review Published on:

  36. Oleaginous fungi are efficient tools to convert agricultural waste streams into valuable components. The filamentous fungus Mucor circinelloides was cultivated in whey permeate, a byproduct from cheese production...

    Authors: Lauryn G. Chan, Joshua L. Cohen, Gulustan Ozturk, Marie Hennebelle, Ameer Y. Taha and Juliana Maria L. N. de Moura Bell
    Citation: Journal of Biological Engineering 2018 12:25
    Content type: Research Published on: