Research Interests: Mapping functional brain network organization in mice, neurovascular coupling, plasticity mechanisms after stroke, developing novel optical neuroimaging methods

REU Project: Imaging functional recovery after stroke

Research Interests: Development of experimental and computational approaches to better understand the relationship between biomechanics and inflammation in soft tissues

REU Project: Determining the biomechanics of perivascular tissues using an image-based system for in-situ arterial pressurization

Research Interests: The Chen laboratory attempts to fill the gap between molecular neuroscience and animal behavior by elucidating the spatial and temporal dynamics of biological signals, because their dynamics carry critical information that explain subsequent modifications of cells, circuits, and behavior.

REU Project: Identifying biological signals that change between sleep and wakefulness

Research Interests: Lysosome biology in cellular stress and homeostasis

REU Project: Role of lysosomes in homeostasis and disease

Research Interests: Novel brain function hardware, analysis pipelines and algorithms

REU Project: Mapping cerebral hemodynamics during pediatric critical care

Research Interests: Development of cutting-edge optical and photoacoustic technologies for high-resolution structural, functional, metabolic and molecular imaging in vivo and their applications in neurovascular disorders, cardiovascular diseases, regenerative medicine, and cancer.

REU Project: Photoacoustic microscopy of the beating heart

Research Interests: Basic and translational stem cell mechanobiology, with specific focus on hydrogels to control cell-mediated tissue repair, and 3-D iPSC-based heart-in-a-dish models to study the influence of mechanical loading and genetics on arrhythmia and contractility.

REU Project: Using image processing to study physiology in iPSC-derived micro-heart muscle arrays

Research Interests: Understanding the immunological mechanisms that govern cardiac recovery and the pathogenesis of heart failure, with a focus on the mechanisms that distinguish pediatric from adult cardiomyopathy

REU Project: Use of Human Pluripotent Stem Cell-derived Macrophages to Improve Tissue Integration

Research Interests: Design and execution of experiments aimed at defining the molecular determinants and the physiological roles of the  types of voltage-gated ion channels expressed in the cardiovascular and nervous systems

REU Project: Accessory Subunits in the Regulation and Dysregulation of Myocardial Sodium Channels

Research Interests: The Nichols Lab develops, introduces and uses a wide range of molecular biological and biophysical approaches, as well as in vivo gene manipulation to address questions in proteins, cells and animals, and now in humans. These efforts are leading them to a detailed understanding of both molecular mechanisms of channel activity, and roles of ion channels in multiple disease processes including diabetes, heart failure, pulmonary disease and epilepsy.

REU Project: Drug development for Cantu Syndrome

Research Interests: Biomechanics-based tools and techniques to study preterm birth mechanisms and intervention

REU Project: Biomimetic Hydrogel Models of Early Development of the Placental Vasculature

Research Interests: Programming and reprogramming cardiac conduction.

REU Project: Methodology for culturing organotypic cardiac slices from atria and ventricles from explanted human donor hearts rejected from transplantation

Research Interests: Cardiac Arrhythmia, Molecular Imaging, Engineered Cardiomyocytes, Computational Models, Extended Reality

REU Project: Predicting whether patients will respond to anti-arrhythmic drug therapies

Research Interests: Cardiovascular mechanics, specifically focusing on cardiovascular development, extracellular matrix proteins, and microstructurally-based constitutive modeling

REU Project: Reagents to increase elastic fiber assembly and prevent elastic fiber degradation

Research Interests: Cardiac electrophysiology

REU Project: How sensitive hearts are to stimulation with ultrasound

Research Interests: Development of multi-pixel x-ray source, tetrahedron x-ray imaging systems based on scanning x-ray sources

REU Project: Small animal ECG device for cardiac gated micro-CT

Research Interests: Cardiovascular imaging applications using MRI modality, cardiac MRI, Quantitative myocardial oxygen extraction imaging

REU Project: Cardiac OEF or PAD/diabetes study

Research Interests: Developing novel bio-photonics technologies, including optical microscopes, and optical stimulation and pacing techniques, for fundamental research, disease diagnosis, and clinical translation

REU Project: Trojan vs Hand Drivers: Effectiveness in Optogenetic Pacing of Drosophila